BURY AC’s men’s and women’s teams have both qualified for the National Road Relay Championships in Birmingham next month.

The teams made it through after their displays at the North of England Road Relay Championships on Sunday at Birkenhead Park.

The men’s race over 12 stages, four long and eight short, got under way at midday with the women’s six-stage race starting at 12.15pm.

With the top 25 teams qualifying for the national championships, Bury’s men sought to qualify for the first time in the club’s history while the women’s team set themselves the target of a top-20 finish.

Ben Coop ran the first long leg, covering the 7.6km in 24mins 58secs to hand over in 22nd place. Conor Wilkinson took the second leg over 3.8km with his 13:01 effort seeing Bury hold on to 22nd position.

Luke Harreld was next on the course for a long leg which he covered in 26:33, conceding three places and handing over to Matthew Collister whose 13:34 pulled Bury back to 24th.

Callum Gaunt ran strongly on the fifth leg with his 26:39 effort keeping the team in a qualifying position. On the Sixth leg was Matthew Garside who maintained Bury’s 24th place with a 13:14 clocking.

The final long leg was taken by Paul Johnston, who moved the team up to 23rd place with 28:14. Jordan Harreld ran the eighth leg in 13:39 and lost one place, but kept Bury in a qualifying spot.

Lewis Whittaker ran the ninth leg and his excellent 13:22 moved Bury back in to 23rd and Declan Tattersall held on to that position, covering the 10th leg in 13:17.

Jon Evans covered the penultimate leg in 13:35 and with one team ahead of Bury being disqualified, the team moved up to 22nd by default.

The final leg was taken by Craig Sykes and he covered it in 14:04, holding on to 22nd position and securing Bury a place in the nationals.

Rachel Marshall ran the first long leg for the women’s team and brought Bury back in 18th place with a time of 30:17.

Nicola Ryan took the second leg and she ran strongly to move the team up to 15th with a 14:50 performance, before Katie Geelan demonstrated she is returning to fine form in moving Bury up to 14th with a 14:59 effort.

Sarah Thomas ran the next leg, a long one, and had to concede two places, finishing her effort in 31:16.

Young Caitlyn Johnston ran the fifth leg with her 15:37 performance placing Bury in 17th.

Harriet Griffiths was the final leg runner and she had an excellent run with her 15:18 moving Bury up to 15th place - the team’s best performance for many years and also qualifying for the nationals which take place on April 9.

The event also saw 5k road championships for junior athletes and running in the under-17 women’s race, Freya Potts took an excellent 10th place covering the distance in 19:04.

Sam Smyth ran in the u17 men’s event and his strong performance of 16:36 gave him 15th position in the quality field.