Leven Valley AC had four junior runners representing Cumbria at the UK Inter-Counties Cross Country Championship last Saturday and all achieved superb results.

After qualifying for the event, which was held at Prestwold Hall, Loughborough, through the County Championships in January, Jessica Bailey, Georgia Bell, Jakob Nelson and Sam McSherry all donned the red Cumbria vest.

Bailey and Bell were expected to go well in the girls’ under-13 race, while Nelson was taking part in the boys’ under-15 event and McSherry looking to do Leven proud in the men’s under-17 race.

Bailey, lived up to her billing as the fastest girl in the county in her age group by becoming the first Cumbrian runner to cross the finish line in a superb time of 13mins 29secs, coming in 21st overall out of 307 runners.

Bell followed as the third runner from Cumbria in the girls’ under-13s to finish, clocking 13:48, coming 47th in a race that was won by Suffolk’s Ruby Vinton in 12:28.

Nelson completed the boys’ under-15 race in 15:05 (36 seconds faster than his County time), coming in as the fifth-fastest runner from Cumbria. His teammate Fraser Sproul finished just behind winner Louis Small of Kent (13:07).

The final junior Leven Valley runner to take to the course was McSherry in the men’s under-17s, and he was the seventh from his county to complete it, doing so in a time of 22:17.

The winner of that age group was the North East’s Sam Charlton, who clocked 18:48 on what was another proud day for the Ulverston-based club.

The club also had Josh Murphy running in the senior men’s race.