LSARRC News 12th January 2016

LSARRC ladies at the Lancashire XC Championships

The 2016 Lancashire Cross Country Championships were held on Saturday at Witton Park in Blackburn with some excellent results for the female side of the club who came away with four individual golds.

First held at Witton Park fifty-five years ago in January 1962, the venue has now become the Championship's permanent home led by obliging host club Blackburn Harriers who possess one of the area's most demanding and interesting cross-country courses. But in the present run of extreme weather it was lucky to take place at all this year with banks of the fast-flowing River Darwen attesting to recent flooding and the resultant heavy mud which sapped competitors' energies.

The Lancashire AA Championships have grown in popularity in recent years thanks to the efforts of a conscientious committee, dedicated to tailoring the event to the wishes of the Lancashire running population and who will have been pleased with the overall total of 500 competitors.

Morgan Pritchard

Sydney Ramsden

15 member of LSARRC were at the championships with the youngest being 9 year old Morgan Pritchard who finished 26th in the U11 Boys races in 6:23 in only his third cross country race.  In the U11 girls race, Sydney Ramsden ran well for 30th place in 8:30 in the the largest junior field of 52.  Rebecca Tate ran the U13 girl's one-lap 3.2k race including a climb up the saucer, a first for Rebecca, who made a real effort to finish 36th in 17:24.  In the same race Georgia Norman was 42nd in 18:31.

Rebecca Tate

The star performance of the day came from 14 year old Ella Moulding who retained her title as U15 Girls Champion winning by a comfortable 16 seconds beating 29 U15 girls and half of the U15 boys in the same race.  Ella took 15:15 to complete the tough 3.8k course which included one climb of the notorious saucer.  Chloe Norman was also in the U15 girls race finishing 21st in 18:13.

Georgia Norman

The senior ladies race consisted of a much more highly competitive field than of recent years with 17 year old Katie Astin from Manx Harriers running away with the title in 26:26.  LSARRC also produced some excellent results with category wins for Joanna Goorney in the Vet 45 category (finishing 17th overall in 29:27), Barbara Holmes in the Vet 55 category (finishing 44th in 32:32) and Dawn Lock in the Vet 70 category (finishing 76th in 57:05.  Felicity Wolohan, another novice to cross country was second home for the club in 33rd place in 32:37, Mel Koth was not far behind in 35th and 33:06, Fiona Geldard was 61st in 38:09, Dawn Bloor was 63rd in 38:57 and Deputy Captain Alex Everest was 65th in 39:57.

The senior ladies team finished eighth overall in the team competition and fourth in the ladies veteran competition.

In the men's race, LSARRC only had one representative for the demanding four lap 9.8km course.  Club Chairman Nigel Simpkin finished 144th in 61:11.

Sunday morning saw the Garstang 10k organised by Garstang Community Academy.  Flooding on the course was luckily eased by Garstang Fire Station who helped drain the one and a half foot puddle on the road.  The race was won by Rob Affleck of Preston Harriers by over a minute in 32:52 and had 507 finishers.  From LSARRC, Tom Howarth finished in 22nd place in a time of 38:22 whilst Richard Storey was 153rd in 45:35.

With many runners from the club competing at the Lancashire Cross Country Championships on Saturday, there were fewer members at the parkruns.  Andy Draper was the sole representative for the club at the Lytham Hall parkrun whose numbers are shooting up as the event gains popularity with 134 participants this week.  He finished 6th in a pb for the course of 19:23.

Neil Bayton-Roberts found a parkrun further afield taking part in the Highbury Fields parkrun, Islington, London.  He finished 49th in a time of 21:36 from a field of 236 runners.

Over on the other side of the world, Roy Stevens continued his hunt for parkruns which turned into no truer word said in jest.  He was this week in Hunter Valley, New South Wales which has had some serious flooding.  Roy initially went to run the Maitland parkrun on Saturday morning only to find it had been cancelled because the road to the start was flooded.  He then drove 30 miles to the next town, Singleton, to run their parkrun arriving unfortunately 5 minutes late.  Although clocked at running 30:28, he actually ran it in 25.29 and still managed to finish 29th out of 74 runners!