PECO Cross Country 2025/2026 – Hyde Park Harriers

Cross country season is almost upon us! If you’re wondering how you can get involved, or why we keep using the word “PECO”, read on!

ENTRIES ARE NOW OPEN! SIGN UP HERE – JUST £17 FOR ALL FIVE RACES PLUS THE END-OF-SEASON RELAYS!

WHAT IS PECO?

PECO is the cross country league that Hyde Park Harriers are part of along with lots of other local clubs. It is five races (each 4 to 5 miles long) plus a separate relay event, taking place over winter. Participants compete both for individual places and for their club.

This year’s events are as follows (dates still to be 100% confirmed, but unlikely to change):

Middleton Park on Sunday 09 November (this will be hosted by Hyde Park Harriers!)
Pontefract Park on Sunday 14 December
West Park on Sunday 04 January
Temple Newsam on Sunday 25 January
Roundhay on Sunday 15 February
Relays at Rothwell on Sunday 08 March

After each event, the finishing places for the top finishers (top nine for the men, top eight for the women) are added together and the club with the lowest total is the winner of that event. There are also separate competitions for our veteran teams – if you’re over 40, your participation will be vital!

The events themselves are then aggregated for overall season championships. Historically, HPH has done very well, including three Premier Divisions wins in the last four years for the men’s team and lots of event wins for the women’s team.

If you’d like to learn more about the club’s history at PECO, Mike Vargas wrote several excellent blogs in 2021!

WHY IS PECO IMPORTANT TO HPH?

Everyone is important at PECO, regardless of pace, age or ability!

From a racing point of view, everyone who participates contributes to the club’s success, whether by finishing in a scoring position, finishing ahead of another club’s scorers or contributing to the countback calculation (don’t ask, it’s very complicated but can make all the difference).

More importantly, HPH always has one of the highest turnouts at PECO races and we make sure everyone is celebrated – as a club we stay until every last one of us has finished and everyone gets the same level of support whether they finish first or last. The atmosphere is always incredible (even in the cold, wind, rain and snow) and we usually have lots of excellent treats to enjoy from the club’s talented bakers.

PECO CAPTAINS

The club needs at least three captains for our PECO teams – one each for the men’s, women’s and veteran’s teams. The job of the captains is first and foremost to promote the events and make sure we get great turnout and enthusiasm for the season!

Other duties include gazebo-wrangling (getting our HPH tent to and from each event and setting it up – the committee and wider club will help too), collecting and distributing the race numbers to our participants and organising post-event socials.

If you’d like to be a captain, please fill in the form here! If we get multiple applications, we’ll discuss with our applicants to see if they want to share the role – generally, the more the merrier!

PECO HOSTING

HPH hosts at least one race each PECO season and this year we’ll be hosting the first race at Middleton Park on Sunday 09 November. We need lots of volunteers to ensure the race goes smoothly – please keep an eye out for details of how to get involved very soon.