Stockport Harriers Primary School Cross Countries 2015/16 - Race 4

Results on many occasions never give the complete picture of what is being achieved. Saturday’s Primary School Cross Country races at Woodbank Park were run in the most dire of conditions. Strong winds and horizontal rain, coupled with an underfoot bog made it by far the worst conditions our young group of athletes have had to face to date. The toughness and resilience demonstrated by the 13 runners from our group, who turned up, was impressive, inspiring and more important to me than any one position achieved.

No excuses – just a really tough training session that worked our endurance component of fitness extremely well!

It was certainly a baptism of fire for Freddie who ran his first Cross Country at Woodbank Park for Buxworth Primary School. Superb first run and congratulations Freddie!

It goes without saying that in such conditions there would be no PBs, however, this is how I would analyse the bare results and they are extremely impressive from a coaching perspective, considering we are a multi-events group and not an endurance group:

• 13 Primary School children running on a Saturday morning (The very best result!)
• 92% of children have built fitness that allows them to be in the top half of the field they are competing in!
• 9 children achieved a top 20 result : Alexa(5^th), William(5^th), Sofia(5^th), Grace(7^th), Jack(7^th), Oliver(12^th), Daniel(14^th), Libby(18^th) and Ava(18^th).
• 8 children achieved their best finishing position to date: Alexa(5^th), William(5^th), Jack(7^th), Grace(7^th), Oliver(12^th), Ted(21^st), Louie(22^nd), Davey(25^th).

A group of young athletes who are gaining in fitness all the time and through their positivity and resilience they are achieving a tremendous amount. They need to be very proud of themselves.

The Full results are attached below:

http://stockportharriers.co.uk/files/docs/shac_schools_xc15_race4.html