Despite the snow and dreadful ground conditions that developed during the day, numbers of athletes taking part in the event compared with the numbers on a good dry day back in 2007 when the Championships were last held at Herrington Park were very good and highly satisfying.

The weather obviously and understandably had an effect on the younger age groups with the under 13s and under 15s down in comparison with recent years and 2007 but all four fields had 200 plus runners. In total 3029 athletes finished across the 10 races with the 2 Senior races having a big increase in finishers compared with 2007. The under 17 Men, Junior Women and Junior Men were up also. In the Senior Women’s race 427 runners finished compared with 297 last time while 1085 compared with 916 ran the Senior Men’s race.

Of course these figures are lower than last year’s London event but numbers are usually lower when held this far North and are encouraging especially with the bad weather conditions.

The Bus company operating the Park & Ride also reported that provisionally they carried over 7200 passengers during the day.