LSARRC News 1st November 2016

Lytham Juniors at Cuerden Valley

The second race of the mid-Lancs cross-country season took place on Saturday in Cuerden Park, and Lytham St Annes Road Runners fielded a good contingent of 30 competitors, including a club record 13 juniors.

Holly Anderson

Cuerden Valley has not been used by the mid-Lancs league before so the course was new to most competitors. What they found was a varied and challenging course, over fields, through thick mud and, for the seniors, a few dips in the River Lostock. In short a proper cross-country.

The Lytham team’s outstanding performance of the day was in the first race of the day, the under 11 girls. Sophie Bohannon, competing in her first ever cross-country event, won the race comfortably with 18 seconds to spare. Making up the rest of the team of three were Amara Thorpe and Clemmie Tierney, closely followed by Jess Ramsden, Hebe Tierney and Charlotte Thomson.

In the under 11 boys the prolific George Denye was unlucky to just miss out on first place in a tightly fought race. George was second by just three seconds. Also in the team that finished fifth were Morgan Pritchard and Eric Wrigley.

Louisa Denye

Syndey Ramsden ploughed a lonely furrow for Lytham in the under 13 girls, but later Laura Bremner, Lucy Bohannon and Holly Anderson ran to make up the first under 15 girls team that Lytham has fielded, finishing seventh.

Lytham put out one of the strongest senior ladies teams for some time with Jo Gourney, Mel Koth and Barbara Holmes all finishing in the top fifty. Jo and Barbara finished second in their respective age categories, and made up the team that finished second in division two and eighth overall. Louise Denye, Julia Rolfe and Pam Hardman made up the second Lytham ladies team. In the age categories Lytham were third in the over 35s, fifth over 45s and an excellent second in the over 55s.

Senior men

The senior men also fielded a good team with Chris McCarthy, running his first cross-country and his second run of the day after Park Run, challenging Andy Draper for the first Lytham man home. In the end Andy took the honours by three seconds and two places to finish 43rd in the race.  Tom Howarth, Paul Veevers, Neil Tate and Terry Hellings made up the rest of the men’s team that came a respectable 16th and third in their division.

George Denye must have been fired up by his narrow defeat at the cross-country because on the following day he broke the junior Park Run record for his age group in Avenden Park, Preston. He ran the 2K course in 7:32, settin ga pb to boot.  Also running and setting a pb was Eric Wrigley in 8:58.

Further afield Felicity Wolohan ran the Beachy Head 10km in Eastbourne on Saturday . This is a scenic and hilly run taking in some of the South Downs to Belle Tout lighthouse and Beachy Head. Finishing in 48.08, Felicity was sixth female and 33rd overall out of over 438 runners.

Over in Dublin evergreen vet 60 Roy Stevens ran the Dublin marathon in just over 4 hours, paying the price for suffering cramp after 20 miles.

In the club’s October Handicap Kirsten Burnett was a deserving winner with a much-improved time on only her second race over the 3.45 miles winter course while runner-up Paula McCandless continued her marked improvement since returning to regular running.  The evening's fastest was Joe Greenwood but his excellent 19:29 was only good enough for ninth place.

On the annual points table sixth place and 25 points for Jeremy McCandless on the night moves him into the lead after seven races.