LSARRC News 26th April 2016

Rachael Wignall.

In a busy week for Lytham St Annes RRC they had athletes from age 10 to 64 racing over distances from 5k to 26.2 miles.  The main event of the weekend was undoubtedly the 36th London Marathon and 9 Lytham members headed to the capital to join 38000 others on the start line.  First home for Lytham was Steve Hargreaves in a time of 2:42:24 for 401st place closely followed by Andy Draper in 2:45:28 for 571st position.  Neil Tate improved on his previous best by over 7 minutes finishing in 2:54:37 for 1216th place.  Chris McCarthy was next for Lytham in 2:58:05 for 1722nd place.  Emily Hargreaves finished in 3:08:56 (204th female).  Melanie Koth in her 10th London Marathon finished 1371st female in 3:36:32. Ruth Wheatley     (5:06:43, 10009th female), Rachael Wignall in her first marathon finished in 5:13:51, 10561st female) and raised £2630 for Kidney Research UK in the process and Alex Wiggins (5:25:55, 33143rd) also ran for Lytham.

Closer to home the Lytham Hall parkrun attracted 10 Lytham members with Ross McKelvie 4th in 18:18, Andy Unsworth 7th in 18:42, 10 year old Morgan Pritchard 32nd in 23:14, Sue Hawitt 54th in 24:32, and Greg Oulton 63rd in 25:21 all recording personal best times.  2 Lytham athletes, junior Laura Bremner 65th in 25:28 and Liz Boon 119th in 29.15 did well competing in their first Lytham Hall parkrun.  Mark Selby 12th in 20:10, Bob Clough 93rd in 27:41 and Jeremy McCandless 99th in 28:15 were also flying the Lytham flag,

Sunday saw Joe Greenwood compete in the Blackpool half marathon finishing in 1:21:22 for 11thplace.  Ross McKelvie in his second race of the weekend ran     1:31:42 for 41st position.

Steve Ashton, training for his Iron Man later in the year, ran in the Rivington 10 mile trail race a tough off road race with over 1000 feet of climbing.  Steve finished in 2:01:56.

The Bolton 10k is challenging course incorporating the undulating roads around and within Leverhulme Park but this did not discourage Lytham members Julia Rolfe and Greg Oulton (his second race of the weekend) who completed the course in 52:02 and 56:05 for 260th and 356th place respectively.

Morgan Pritchard at Lytham Hall parkrun