Loads of action this weekend with Red Rose Road Runners tackling mountain passes, Hell, The Grim Reaper as well as plenty of the more mundane road races!
Starting at the top with the Lakeland 4 passes race over 22ish miles of Lakeland fells from Borrowdale. Andy Martin ran 4hr 30 mins, Graham Roberts approx. 6hr 30 and Andy Hale also completed this gruelling event which is not for the faint hearted.
The club Grand Prix competition reached it conclusion with the last of the Pilling 10k race series of races. Lots of prizes for RRRR here. John Shepherd 36.42 was 4th male and 1st v50, Anneke Crosby was a marvellous 3rd lady finisher, Jenny Fairclough was rewarded with a 1st v55, Joan Gouldthorpe 1st v65 and Carol Douglass 1st v70. The club also won both team prizes. John Naylor, Annees Shaikh and Jim McClean also ran.
Alex Venables 39.58 headed a pack of 8 RRRR at Stanley Park in the Autumn Breaker 10k. Kristian Lowe was pleased to record a pb 41.18, Sarah Hall, Lisa Bolton, David Bayliss, Vicky Gore, Stephen Walker and Nicola Patterson made up the group.
A couple of free to enter 5k races took place this weekend. At the Bolton event of the Decathlon series the club had Louise and Hannah Withnell wearing the red vests while at Buckshaw Village 5k Stuart Cann was 1st overall followed by “a few” other RRRR.
Louise McKenna, Mary Conway, Lynn Melvin, Robert Taylor, Mark McCormack and Pete Battersby went to Hell, well Delamere Forest really, for the Hell up North half Marathon. This is billed as the toughest half in the UK with features such as Lucifer’s Lido and the Bog of Doom to tackle. Just to make things a little more difficult several ran in Wally outfits. And a nice picture they made too!
Mary Conway was out again, this time with Tracy Woods taking part in Beat the Reaper 10k. Apparently the Grim Reaper is lurking in the woods ready to leap out and chase unsuspecting runners.
In the Manchester Half Gary Corcoran continued his good form with a pb of 1 31.41, Liam Hooton was pleased with a pb time of 1 34.22 while Faisil Ali also recorded a pb of 2 14. Other runners were James Simon, Chelsea Leigh, Georgina Chelton, Debbie Brownrigg, Simon Robinson, Simone Darwen, and Gina Biggs.
As far as I can tell the club had one runner at Birmingham half, Lisa Rowland who completed the race in 2hr 40 mins.
And finally, it was the annual Lancashire 5 mile championships at Green Drive, Lytham. Red Rose had two winners in Ken Addison v60 30.54 and Eve Elkington v80 53.45. Simon Croft was slightly downbeat about his run of 28.10 for 9th place. Dave Brunton, Andrew Stell, Natalie Moore, Alison Parkinson, Paula Stell, Karen Clark, Dave Aspin and Bernard Elkington also ran.