IN her first race after a three-week family holiday in New Zealand, Morpeth Harrier Laura Weightman showed that she had not lost any of her previous sparkle by winning the Women's 3000m at the final Start Fitness sponsored North Eastern Athletics meeting at Jarrow's Monkton Stadium.
Her victory was sweetened by the fact that she also clocked a new personal best for the distance of 9m38.6s, beating her previous figures by 18 seconds, set in June 2007 at Gateshead.
She also set a new Morpeth Harriers' Women's record for the dis
tance as she took victory from Chester-le-Street's Claire Simpson by four seconds.
This also means that Weightman has improved times in all four of the events she has covered this season, a unique individual and club achievement for someone who is still at Junior level.
Other Morpeth Harrier winners on the night were Rachel Denton and Joe Robertshaw.
Denton was hard pressed during the first lap of the U15 Girls' 800m by Birtley's Sophie Taylor, however, at the bell she put sufficient daylight between herself and the determined Taylor to coast home to victory in 2m23.5s which eventually gave her a seven second cushion.
Robertshaw just held off the close challenge of Gateshead's Jack Young to claim victory in the U13 Boys' 200m in 28.4s. Alistair Douglass was fifth U17 man in the 3000m in a time of 9m56.3s. Daniel Hedley was second U17 man in the 200m in 25.3s.
• Morpeth Harriers won the Men's team race at the Exhibition Park 5k Road Race held at Newcastle.
They were led home by David Swinburne who finished sixth overall in 16m12s. Support came from Phil Walker (eighth) 16m14s and Paul Waterston (11th) 16m48s.
Morpeth's Women finished as third team behind Wallsend and Elswick, and were led home by Deborah Oakley who was 11th lady in 105th place in 20m19s, and was also first U17 Lady finisher. Support came from Zoe Armstrong (120th, second U17, 15th Lady) 20m45s, and Sue Calvert (130th, fourth O40 Lady, 17th Lady) 21m07s.
Other Morpeth Harriers to finish in a field of 268 finishers were: Bill Gilroy (24th, fourth O45) 17m42s, Alistair MacDonald (35th, sixth O45) 18m12s, Graeme Leathard (51st, tenth O40)18m46s, Neil McAnany (67th, 12th O45) 19m14s, Jim Alder (81st, 13th O45), 19m34s, Mike Steven (99th, eighth O50) 20m12s, Iain McLaren (103rd, 20th O40) 20m17s,Trevor Robinson (124th) 20m52s, Sally Welsh (181st, seventh O40 Lady, 34th Lady) 23m39s and Sue Smith (194th, ninth O40 Lady, 39th Lady) 24m10s.
• A total of 44 enthusiastic runners took part in the Fun Run at Saturday's Warkworth Show.
The event was started by Morpeth Harriers' Club President Jim Alder and the first home was Amble schoolboy Alistair Douglass from Morpeth Harriers who won the Men's category. Second home was his club colleague Jonny Nisbet who won the U16 Boys' section. Morpeth Harrier Sarah Wilkes won the U16 Girls' section when she finished eighth overall. Sharon Green won the Women's by finishing 20th.
• This Saturday sees the annual Tartan Games event being staged at Gateshead International Stadium.
The full article contains 521 words and appears in Morpeth Herald newspaper.
