BURY put in some strong performances at the Northern Athletics Road Running and Road Relay Championships.

The women's team finished 16th and the men were 36th in the sunshine in Blackpool's Stanley Park.

Katie Geelan completed the first leg of 10k in 33mins 58secs to put Bury 21st.

They dropped two places after Jenny Yates ran the second leg, which was 5k, in 21:50.

But the Market Street club started to move back up through the field as Nicola Harland ran the third leg (5k) in 22:36 and Caitlin Cole, on her way back from injury, completed the fourth (10k) in 40:08 to push them up to 16th.

They remained their at the end of the final two legs.

Christie Cook posted the club's fastest 5k leg in 21:01 and Sophie Hill brought the team home in 23:13 (5k) on her debut for Bury as they finished 16th out of 50 teams.

Bury had four more women running in a B team. They were 51st after the end of the fourth leg following good efforts from Lizzi Cheshire (47:38), Brianne Turner (27:04), Sarah McGrath (28:18) and Nicola Brown (52:27).

The men’s race was in 12 stages with the first, third, fifth and seventh legs being longer.

Ben Coop put the team in 27th place after completing the first leg in 31:53. That was the highest placing the team managed in the 61-strong field.

Coop was followed by Tony Cullen (18:22), Jim Ardin (32:54), Jack Griffiths (19:02), Byron Edwards (35:10), Benn Heywood (19:10), David Cullen (33:48), Pierre-Louis Statsenko (19:35), Matthew Grice (19:56), Iestyn Rimmer (21:21), Chris Barrow (20:52) and Andy Worthington (21:18).

The event also incorporated the 5k championships for under-17s and u15s.

In the u17s men's race, Marcus Dey took an excellent sixth place (16:15), finishing one place ahead of team-mate Ollie Makinson (16:24).

Bury could not field a third athlete in the age category so missed out on a team medal.

The club's u15s boys earned a creditable fifth place. Brandon Quinton was 10th in 17:26, supported by Stefan Kalambouka (17:55), who continues to show good improvement, in 20th place, with third counter Oliver Donnelly (18:40) in 34th.

Heledd Rimmer was Bury’s sole competitor in the girls race, finishing 23rd in 22:04, nearly two minutes faster than her previous best for 5k.

On Sunday, the father and son duo of Colin and Jack Smith competed in the Cheshire 10k at Arley Hall.

This was Jack’s first outing over 10k and he recorded a time of 46:25, beating his dad by 21 seconds.