Race Date: Saturday 4th January 2025
Burnley born and bred Sarah Thorne, still proud of her Red Rose heritage despite spending far too many years in Yorkshire, made the trip home to her parents to run in the Lancashire Championships for a change of scenery this year.
Whereas Lightwater was frozen solid, Blackburn was definitely warmer with no frost on the course. Sarah describes the Witton Park course as always extremely muddy and those who ran the Northern’s there a couple of years ago will be unable to forget the very deep mud section at the bottom of the downhill. A few people lose shoes there every year. There’s a ‘decent’ uphill section which came in handy for Sarah where her experience on the fells helped her to overtake competitors on the up with only a couple coming past on the corresponding down. There were three laps in total so only a short 6,500m
Not a speck of snow in sight with evidence of mud aplenty. Sarah eventually managed to get a +20sec gap on the Blackburn lass. (Photo Blackburn Harriers).
After the race, Sarah received an envelope for 10th Senior woman inviting her to be considered for selection for the Inter-Counties in March. In the results she appears as 12th although there were three U20’s ahead of her so who knows about that one. In Lancashire there are six automatic places for the Inter-Counties team of nine based on the results from the County Champs with the remaining three places decided on results from the Northern Champs and the January mid-Lancs league race (which conveniently for Sarah was cancelled due to snow this year).
Being realistic, Sarah believes that to stand a chance of selection she needs for a couple of people ahead of her to be unavailable in March so it’s a nervous wait to see if she gets the nod. In Sarah’s words “If nowt else, getting an envelope gave me enough of a boost to leg it back to the train station before the Blackburn vs Burnley game finished”. In any event, what the experience does is raise the bar in terms of what is possible as the County Vest does seem to be the de-rigueur item of clothing for the discerning cross county afficionado. As Sarah puts it “Aye, now we just need to get the lads onto it!”
| Pos | Name | Time |
| 1 | Ruth Jones (Leeds) | 00:24:55 |
| 12 | Sarah Thorne | 00:27:44 |
65 ran.
Looking at the full results, Lancashire Cross Country Championships 2025 three of the women in front of Sarah at Witton Park didn’t run at the Northern’s on 25th January but who knows how the mind of the selectors works?.