This weekend was all about the return of the North East Harrier League Cross Country, with the traditional season opener at Wrekenton, on Saturday. We had a big squad on the day, with plenty of debutants experiencing the thrills and spills of XC for the first time.

As ever over recent years, the females massively outnumbered the males (howay fellas, we need to do better!) – starting in Division 3 for this season, our ladies finished the day at the top of the league; with Bernie Gibson, Natasha Powell, Claire Knox and Jenny Yeo finishing 13th, 15th, 21st and 52nd respectively, to finish with 28 points, nine points clear of the next placed team.

Table toppers to start the season! And our other team members got teams to joint 12th and joint 17th – with Vic Brook, Laura Peacock, Kirsty Robson and Sue Urwin getting the 12th placed team home. A strong season for the ladies beckons!

John Kirby, Kieran Ridley and Rob Peacock literally flew the flag for us, but with the low numbers, we ended up with an incomplete team – XC rules needing 6 in the men’s leagues to register a full team. Great results from John, Kieran and Rob to all finish inside the top 400, none the less; and we’ll be aiming for bigger numbers next time round.

Ladies results: http://www.harrierleague.com/results/2023-24/Wrekenton/SenF.htm

Ladies photos: https://stuartwhitmanphotography.pixieset.com/nehl-wrekenton-women/

Men’s results: http://www.harrierleague.com/results/2023-24/Wrekenton/SenM.htm

Men’s photos: https://stuartwhitmanphotography.pixieset.com/nehl-wrekenton-men/

As ever with cross country, there was an abundance of cakes, baked goods and great craic – it never disappoints, and neither does DVRC.

Those of us who weren’t doing XC were at ParkRun – with our members hitting the courses of Whitley Bay, Queen’s Belfast, Riverside and Chopwell Wood. Simon and Lisa Hutchinson took on volunteer duties at Chopwell Wood, while Bex Hewitson finished first female at Queen’s in Belfast.

And of course no weekend is complete without the trails of Chopwell Wood for our Sunday Social…