North West
Sunday
First of all this is NOT an individual event
This is a TEAM event were everyone's position count
The first 6 men and first 3 women to finish from each team contribute to the team's overall score. Runners finishing outside of these places still help by pushing down other team members' placings. So it really is a club effort!
About the races
Currently there are around twenty clubs of all sizes who take part in the league and compete to be Mens and Ladies team winners at the end of the season.
At the end of each event the club hosting will invite all runners to enjoy some tea, coffee, sandwiches and biscuits in some sort of community hall, all for the princely sum of 50p. This creates a nice atmosphere to get to know the other teams while the event results are calculated.
Note: most of the events are in the Merseyside area so allow a little bit of extra time to drive down the East Lancs or M62. Is there any traffic on the roads Sunday Morning?
This is the best bit. All men and ladies start at the same time, there are no split start
START TIMES
Start time: 10:00am
Day: SUNDAY
DISTANCE
Roughly : 9K to 10K depending on the event.
TEAM PRIZE ONLY
Winners for Men
Winners for Ladies
Clarke Gardens
This is like an extended park run and is a lovely introduction to cross country. There are no toilets near the start. Full guide here.
Runcorn Town Park
Has a bit of everything in it; it is twisty, some-time muddy, runs through woods and open grass and has the infamous ski slope.
Beacon Park
The most challenging of the courses, this starts at the top of Beacon Fell and runs up and down and around it a few times. The views are breathtaking. The car parking next to the start is limited but there are other car parks nearby..
Birchwood Park
The muddiest of all races, the course takes in all the bad bits of Forest Park in Birchwood, if it was not for the mud it would be a fairly easy course.
Croxteth Park
Few of us at Burnden did run this event as a guest to see if we liked. We did …..
The course is a two lap course which is pretty flat terrain under foot, to mix it up a bit the course run through some woods on the parameter of the park with a small water crossing.
Arrow Park
I actually remember running at Arrow Park as a teenager. I have just looked at the map of the course and the course is pretty much the same. Running on the parameter of the field, Depending on the weather and underfoot conditions will give you all you need to know about running on grass.