Sunday, 30 September 2012

LSARRC News 18th September 2012


Marbury Park hosted the 2012 Northwest Counties Road Relays on Saturday 15th September. The close proximity of results, presentations, kiosks, toilets and changing grouped together on the sunny lawn made for an excellent venue for this year’s event.  An interesting flat 5.4k course looping round this attractive park with plenty of opportunities for viewing and wonderful weather in a week of particularly unpleasant wind and rain made for an enjoyable day out.

Lytham had a full complement of two men’s and two women’s teams competing in the Lancashire Championships in the Men's four stage and Women’s three stage held for the thirteenth time in conjunction with runners from Cheshire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside making for larger more competitive fields.   

Going out first were the Lytham women’s and B teams which included three new to relays.  All runners acquitted themselves well with an outstanding performance from Barbara Holmes on Leg 1 of the A Team whose 24:14 was the best time for the women and an excellent time for her.  Completing the A Team was Fiona Geldard, 28:49 and Sylvia Gittins with the second fastest leg, 28:32.  The B Team was led out by Janice Cobley who, while new to relays produced a good run of 28:44.  Pam Bins on Leg 2 ran 33:09and Dawn Lock did 42:42.  Lytham took 5th and 6th in the Lancashire Championships.

First off for the men’s A team was Terry Hellings completing the 5.4k two lap course in 22:10 followed by Tom Howarth (19:51), Steve Quarmby (21:19) and Graham Webster (20:11) to bring the team home as 10th Lancashire team.  The men’s B team of Roy Stevens (23:49), Greg Oulton (26:28), Bill Lock (28:18) and Andrew Sneddon (30:46) finished 16th Lancashire team.

Sunday 16th September saw nine Lytham athletes competing in Half Marathons.

Locally five members competed in the notoriously tough Garstang Half Marathon with a particularly steep climb at about eleven miles adjacent to the Grizedale Valley.  Continuous, sometimes torrential rain made the challenge even tougher.  First back for Lytham was club champion Andy Draper in 9th place with a time of 1:22:19

Next to finish was Lytham's only oversees member Emily Hargreaves on a visit from her Austrian home and showing that she'd lost none of her competitive edge.  Finishing 41stplace, Emily had a good run in 1:32:24 to take the second women’s prize.  Also turning out for Lytham were Mel Koth, 1:39:07,sixth woman, 69th overall, third FV50 Pam Hardman, 158th in 1:57:32and Dawn Lock, 215th in 2:49:33, knocking over a minute off her time in last month's Fleetwood Half Marathon.

150 miles to the North East four Lytham athletes joined over 40,000 other runners (including British Olympians Jo Pavey and Freya Murray) in the 32nd running of The Great North Run.  First home for Lytham was Simon Denye in 261st place with a new pb of 1:23:07.  Training partner Mark Willett was next in 1:29:12 (788th).  Rob Goodall also ran a pb of 2:02:22 to finish in 16230th with Angelalynn Smith completing her first half marathon in 2:04:02 (17234th) as part of her training for running two marathons later this year. 

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