ORLA Gregory crossed the line second as the Manchester Manchester Area Cross Country League got underway at the weekend.

The Warrington Athletics Club under 15s runner clocked 17mins 23secs at Wythenshawe Park and led the team to third place on 41 points.

Featuring in the team were Eva Ferris, 18th, in 19mins 26secs and Lucie Davies, 21st, in 19mins 39secs.

Molly Wormald was close behind Lucie in 22nd place.

In the boys’ race Erik Marshall was the only runner from the club, finishing 10th with a time of 16mins 27secs.

Fay Humphreys was 31st in the under 17s women’s race in 36mins 37secs, while in the senior women’s race Leanne Astbury made her debut for the club finishing 193rd overall with a time of 43mins 18secs to place 31st over 35 woman.

In the senior men’s race David Watson, running for the club as a second claim athlete, finished in an excellent 21st place overall to win the over 45s age group in 34mins 05secs, while Daniel Newman was 164th overall and 14th over 50 with 40 mins 23secs.

Meanwhile, Colin Bishop’s winning streak continued when he finished first V55 at the Morecambe 10k, staged on a very blustery and wet seaside promenade on the Lancashire coast.

He was fourth overall to finish, and he completed the 10k course in 35mins 28secs which is three seconds quicker than the previous time he completed the race in more favourable weather conditions during the summer.

Warrington Athletics Club were represented by a trio of competitors in the Wiggle Manchester Half Marathon on Sunday.

Steve Watmough won the MV55 category with 1hr 16mins 31secs, which is just two seconds outside his personal best time.

He finished 75th overall out of 11,355 male finishers.

Lauren Goddard completed the race in 1hr 45mins 36secs, finishing 357th woman overall.

Louise Blizzard clocked 1hr 32mins 21secs to finish 10th in the FV40 category and was 79th woman overall.

A week earlier Blizzard took part in the Chester Metric Marathon (26.2k) finishing in 33rd place overall with a time of 1hr 56mins 34secs to finish fifth woman and second woman over 40.

Warrington Athletics Club’s Katie Lowery took part in the Scottish East District Cross Country Relays at Livingston, representing Edinburgh University D team.

Running on the second stage, Lowery took over in 23rd place and moved the team up into 15th place with a time of 15mins 36secs.

Her time was the 16th equal fastest of the race.