Catch up with all the news from the festive period as we bring you latest endurance running results from the UK
RIBBLE VALLEY 10km, inc North of England Championship, Clitheroe, Lancashire, December 29
After a close race with Jacob Cann, James West came out on top with 28:43, a time that was comfortably a personal best.
The 28-year-old Tonbridge runner is the reigning UK champion 5000m outdoors and 3000m indoors, but has rarely been seen on the roads. Apart from a couple of Podium 5km races in 2023, West’s previous road outings were back in 2016.
In contrast, Cann is a regular racer over 10km but his 28:46 here was 16 seconds faster than his previous best, set at Telford two weeks earlier.
Another regular on the roads has been Birchfield’s Omar Ahmed who seems to be somewhat below his best times from earlier in 2024 and found 29:02 good enough for an isolated third place.
James West (Graham Smith)
It was another asylum seeker, Biruk Aduna Kebede, who took both under-20 and Northern championship titles with his fifth-placed time of 29:23.
The women’s race saw Hannah Nuttall, who is also the UK 5000m champion, defeat the 2023 winner Jess Warner-Judd by eight seconds in 31:53.
Surprisingly this was a personal best by well over a minute for Nuttall, who was 10th in the European 5000m championships earlier this year, a distance at which she is ranked second for 2024 with 14:52.65.
Warner-Judd won this event in 2023 with 32:43 and was significantly quicker this year with 32:01 but ran considerably faster over the distance elsewhere in both years.
Warriors Pentathlon matriarch Emily Haggard-Kearney was left a minute down in third, but second in the Northern championship, behind Warner-Judd.
Women’s podium (Graham Smith)
Overall: 1 J West (Ton) 28:43; 2 J Cann (NEB) 28:46; 3 O Ahmed (Bir) 29:02; 4 S Stirling (Falk) 29:17; 5 B Kebede (CleM, U20) 29:23; 6 M Ramsden (B’burn) 29:23; 7 R Allen (Leeds) 29:30; 8 J Escalante-Phillips (C&C) 29:36; 9 F Ross-Davie (Garscube) 29:36; 10 B Quinton (Warr) 29:37; 11 J Sagar (Leeds) 29:38; 12 S Ghafari (High) 29:44; 13 C Coulson (Hough) 29:47; 14 H Johnson (Hali) 29:56; 15 J Martin (Hallam) 30:00; 16 L McCourt (Morp) 30:11; 17 J Gilbert (Ken, M40) 30:11; 18 D Bebbington (B’burn) 30:12; 19 M Bostock (Leeds) 30:16; 20 D Connolly (Mercia) 30:20
M40: 2 M Dillon (Ampt) 32:30
M45: 1 M Jenkin (Bide) 32:41
M50: 1 S Shaw (ESM) 34:00
M55: 1 F Rafferty (S’port W) 35:04
M60: 1 G Goodwin (Acc) 36:34
U20: 2 F Oycomurchu (Chich R) 30:35
TEAM: 1 Leeds 37; 2…
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