More from Blackburn

A few further thoughts on Manx Harriers’ trip to Blackburn for last Saturday’s Lancashire Cross Country Championship:

The weather and ground conditions were as good as could reasonably be expected at this time of year (even if Les Brown didn’t agree!). Although sticky in places, it was certainly a whole lot better than last year’s mudbath in which several runners lost shoes during their races, including Andrew Newton and Bronwen Kaneen. I don’t think any of the Manx Harriers runners had any such problems this time.

As always the Manx party was made extremely welcome by everyone at Witton Park, and many members of the squad were personally thanked by the officials for supporting the event. Our athletes certainly impressed many of the spectators round the course. The question I was asked most often during the day was who our Under 15 girl was who completely destroyed the opposition! The second most popular question was what time did we have to get up that morning to travel across.

The web coverage of this year’s event has probably been the most comprehensive ever. With Murray Lambden not running this time he was able to give his full attention to his cameras and video equipment, capturing hundreds of photos and lots of video for http://www.manxathletics.com/. Ian Astin also took many quality photos which can be accessed via the site, and I had my camcorder on the go throughout the day. I have put some of my film onto DVD and am hoping to get some of the highlights uploaded onto the website shortly.

The club’s website http://www.manxharriers.com/ has in-depth features on every Lancs Cross Country Championship since 2005 and is well worth having a look at. John Watterson tells me that the Manx Independent will be giving the event plenty of space in this week’s edition, and if you also throw in last weekend's Manx Radio coverage and the blogs written by Andy Fox and myself, the Lancs has surely had more coverage this year than ever before. Let’s hope this raises awareness of this great event and encourages even more people to go next year. Wouldn't it be great if we could push the medal tally into double figures!

Andy generally books around 30 places on the trip, but judging from the number of empty seats on the plane I think we could probably take at least 35 if the interest was there. We need more youngsters next year, especially in the boys races. Jack Garrett was the only Under 13 Boy this year and there were no Under 15 Boys. They must be out there somewhere!

Attention now turns to the Isle of Man Cross Country Championships at Crossags Farm, Ramsey on Sunday 20th January. Stay tuned to the blog over the next few days for a look ahead to this event, updated league tables from the Cross Challenge after 3 rounds, and plenty more.