Sunderland Harriers host their 24th Sunderland 5k Road Race tomorrow night at Silksworth Sports Complex with class fields chasing Northern and North East championship medals.
This will be the final year of a three-year contract in staging the Northern Athletics event and the Wearsiders are determined to again get in on a slice of the action.
Last year, the women’s and men’s teams won silver team medals in the three-to-count team races and they go into the events in confident mood.
And for the first time since Mark Hood’s victory in 2008 there is another Sunderland runner with an outside chance of winning the men’s race.
Oliver James, on summer leave from college in America, where he is studying dentistry, is in fine form and has already notched up two wins since his return to his parents’ home in Tunstall...