Our juniors competed in round two of the Shropshire young athletes league at Packwood. It’s safe to say that the weather was blowing a gale to a point where standing was hard at times.

We had set up the course the day before and it required a bit of a touch up on the day to make sure it was safe for the athletes.

Packwood is a lovely, yet very hard course and each of the athletes need to run up a very steep, long and mushy hill which really takes it out of the legs. The U13 and above have to do it on more than one occasion.

First up was our U11 girls. Once again our U11 girls were dominant. Like the first fixture, our girls were first two home with Norah K winning and looking super strong the longer the race went on and Annabelle T coming in second after leading the first two thirds of the race. Georgie Rae H was next home for us in 4th with Annabel H in 7th and Lucy D in 9th which means we had five of the first nine home. This fantastic team performance has now increased our league in the U11 girls completion against the second placed team.

Next up was our U11 boys. At the last fixture Wrekin were quite dominant and beat us by over 10 points. Today was a much better story for Shrewsbury and a much more competitive race. Once again our team was led well by Lucas R who added to his 3rd place finish in the first fixture with a 3rd place here. It looked almost impossible to separate 2nd and 3rd on the line. Next finishers were Owen R 7th, Riley G 8th, Ben K 9th, Reuben MJ 10th, Jasper T 12th, Alexander R 15th, Harry C 16th, Ewan G 17th, and Max W in 22nd. The boys were very closely behind Wrekin today in the team race which is a big improvement on the last fixture so well done boys.

Next up was our U15/U17 girls race. In the U15 race Chloe S was back to her best and reversed the result to a very good Telford athlete bringing home the win. Next up was Megan B who came home in 3rd and Emilia H in 8th, giving us a big lead in the team competition.

In the U17 girls race Beth T did what Beth T does well. She bounced around the course making another win look effortless.

Our fourth race of the day was the U15/17 boys race and we only had one runner in the U15 boys race. Finn Thompson stuck to his task well and earned some good points for us by coming in 4th place.

In the U17 boys race we had two runners and both ran very good races. Sam T came 2nd before he went off for his football match and Toby A was 6th. These two did just enough to win their age group race today by one point.

Last up was the combined U13 boys and girls race. In the boys Oscar A went off quick and had a massive lead before feeling sick and pulling out at 2.3k. Thomas L ran another great race finishing in 2nd and Logan W was equally as impressive finishing in 4th. Charlie S was next home in 8th with Josh T 10th, Rory G 13th and Sam W 25th. These results mean Wrekin will extend their lead on us in the team competition.

Our U13 girls were once again magnificent. We had a few people missing from the line up today, but our girls were just as amazing as last time. Roni K had another win to add to the win in the first fixture. Next up was Arya CJ in 4th, Selina V 5th, Lucy H 6th, Amelie W 7th and Zara T in 13th, meaning we extended the lead in the team race.

Today Shrewsbury won the event by over 200 points, so a big well done to all the athletes who competed. We are still short of runners in the U15 and U17 age groups, so if anyone wants to compete please let us know.

We would like to thank all those that helped put this event on today. There were people helping in many capacities including, referee, Marshalls, officials, organisers and event close down helpers. The event went smooth because of you guys so thank you. A final thank you would be to the Packwood school who were great hosts and we hope to can continue to use this location moving forward.