A NUMBER of Bury athletes kept themselves ticking over in local parkrun events last weekend.

Men’s team captain Byron Edwards won the Worsley Woods event and set a new personal best of 17mins 52secs in the process. A little further down the field, Jessica Simmons made a promising debut in 24:26.

At Heaton Park, 14-year-old Brandon Quinton made an excellent debut, taking second place in 17:22 and holding off Luke Harreld, who took third in 17:29.

Stefan Kalambouka set a new best for the 5k course taking fifth in 17:37 and Jack Griffiths and Paul Johnston made it five Bury AC runners in the top 10, taking seventh and eighth in 19:00 and 19:04 respectively.

Women’s captain Lizzi Cheshire completed the course in 22:22, followed by Ed Hitchin (24:56), Alison Dale (26:10), Pam Hitchin (26:25), Jennifer Smalley (26:54), Dave Carroll (28:26) and Peter Henderson (29:18).

Brianne Turner competed at the Run through Tatton Park 10k, completing the course in 54:56 in torrential rain.

The previous weekend a small team of three Bury athletes travelled up to Scotland to compete in the Scottish National Combined Events Championships, held at the Emirates arena.

All three competed in the pentathlon competition for under-15s with Jay Cook taking eighth place in the boys’ competition, with a new best point score of 1,412.

Abigail Howard took ninth in the girls' event (2,406) and Ella Hall finished 18th (2,135) – both new lifetime best scores. The competition saw each athlete compete over 800m, 60m hurdles, high jump, long jump and shot.

The youngsters set a number of PBs for the events as part of the overall competition. Abigail set new lifetime bests in the 800m (2:42.93), 60m hurdles (9.99), high jump (1.34), and long jump (4.27), while Jay set personal bests in the high jump (1.43) and long jump (4.37).

Ella recorded new bests in the hurdles (10.57), high jump (1.16), long jump (4.42) and shot (8.80).

Their performances speak volumes about their dedication to training with coach Matt Cullen.