Reebok International Cross Challenge, Cardiff 2005

Sunday 23rd January 2005

Debut Senior International Cross-Country Vest for Harty

Newcastle AC's Kerry Harty reached another running landmark on Sunday past when she gained her first senior international vest for Northern Ireland at the Reebok International Cross-Country race in Bute Park in Cardiff.

After an eventful day travelling via Bristol Airport, the team's hotel was the Holiday Inn beside the Millenium Stadium where the Tsunami Relief Charity Concert was in full flight - though with the roof closed, it was not creating as much noise as it might have been. Sunday dawned bright and crisp after the hard overnight frost but with the buckets of rain that had fallen over the past month, the course promised to be a quagmire, especially as there were nine other races over the same ground before the Ladies race.

Harty had picked up many junior international vests but has only returned to the racing over the past year or so after around five years of a lay-off from the serious competitive end of the scene. Last summer she represented Ireland at the European Mountain Racing Championships in Poland and Northern Ireland at the World Mountain Racing Championships in Italy.

Sunday's race was over three laps of a reasonably flat loop behind Cardiff Castle, totalling 6km and posing a tough test in the strength sapping underfoot conditions. Harty had finished 4th Northern Ireland woman home in the Stormont cross-country two weeks earlier and the three women who beat her were also in Cardiff.

First Northern Ireland woman home in 17th place was Jill Shannon 46 seconds clear of Suzanne McCormick who was in 23rd place, reversing their relative placing at Stormont. Harty ran, as ever, a determined race and came home in 30th place in 25 minutes and 52 seconds, just ahead of Catriona McCorkell who had narrowly beaten her at Stormont.

Harty now looks forward to the Northern Ireland Intermediate Women's Cross-Country Championship this weekend in Bangor over 2.5miles where she will be backed by a Newcastle team eager to secure the title.

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