LSARRC News 28th March 2017

Michelle Hook at the relays

The North of England men’s 12 stage Road Relays and ladies’ 6 stage Road Relays returned to Stanley Park on Saturday.  The event attracts the best clubs from all over the North of England and is a qualifying event for the National Finals. The men’s relay race is run over approximately 80 kilometres divided into 12 stages ,4 of 10km and 8 of 5km and run in and around Stanley Park. 

Late withdrawals meant Lytham had a slightly weakened team but performed well against tough opposition to finish as 52nd team from 69 teams starting the race.  Mike Toft was on the competitive first leg for Lytham and finished in 44th position with a time of 33:58 easily Lytham’s fastest long leg runner.  Rest of the team in order were Terry Hellings (22:21), Thomas Howarth (36:17), Andrew Draper (18:18, fastest short leg runner for Lytham), Neil Tate (38:09), Paul Veevers (18:31), Graham Webster (40:10), Andrew Unsworth (19:33), Ross McKelvie (19:10), Lee Morrison (21:35), Alan Elstone (22:04) and Ian Tate (21:15).

In the ladies’ 6 stage Road Relays. Lytham St Annes Road Runners fielded two teams with each team having to run four long legs and two short.

Terry Hellings at the relays

Taking the long legs in the 'A' Team were Mel Koth on Leg 1, 41:42 and Michelle Hook, running her first relay for LSARRC on Leg 4 in 40:36.   Mel led out finishing in 34th place and Michelle consolidated this to 26th.  Team 'A' short legs were done by Gillian Draper, Leg 2, 23:26; Felicity Wolohan, Leg 3 with the Club's fastest of 21:47; Claire England, Leg 5, 26:05 and Susan Hawitt, Leg 6, 25:46.  The team finished in 29th place from 50 top-class teams with a time of 2:59:22.  

For the 'B' team Alexandra Everest, 47:18, and Jacqui Murray, 53:06, took the long legs for while Olivia Johnson-Allen, 26:58, Laura Byrne, 29:24, Patricia Bullen, 29:34 and Ruth Bye, 25:59, took Legs 2, 3, 5 and 6 respectively.  The team finished 47th in 3:29:12.

Andy Draper at the relays

Sunday saw Lytham take over the organising of the Park View Junior parkrun.   74 young athletes completed the 2K course with LSARRC athletes finishing in 5 out of the first 6 places.  10 year old George Denye was first home in 7:13 breaking his own course record by 19 seconds.  Sophie Bohannon finished 2nd in her first junior parkrun setting a new girls’ course record of 7:46.  Many of the other Lytham juniors set personal best times including Morgan Pritchard (7:59, 4th),Eric Wrigley (8:27, 6th), Laura Bremner (8:28, 7th), Lewis Bentley (8:51, 11th), Lucy Bohannon (9:07, 16th), Amara Thorpe (9:08, 17th), Clemmie Tierney (9:48, 26th), Sophie Tate (12:09, 46th). Lucy Montgomery (9:34, 21st), Sebastien Koth-Wragg (12:03, 45th), Hebe Tierney (9:45, 25th) and Katie Bremner (10:11, 30th) ran well on their Junior parkrun debuts.  Also representing Lytham were Charlie Ormerod (8:06, 5th) and sisters Jessica (9:29, 20th) and Sydney Ramsden (8:55, 14th) both running  very close to their best times.

On Saturday four Lytham runners were lucky enough to take part in the fabulously located Coniston 14. This 14-mile race took place in warm sunshine with a backdrop of snow-capped mountains, and with plenty of local support along the route. On a hilly course Sylvia Gittins and Pam Binns were 6th and 7th respectively in the F65+ category. Pam Hardman was 25th in her F55+ category while Ruth Wheatley was 52nd in the F45+s.

Jo Goorney ran the Long Mynd Valleys English Championships Fell Race yesterday from Carding Mill Valley, Church Stretton, Shropshire.  The race was about 11 miles with 4500 feet of ascent.  The sting in the tail was that most of the ascent was in the last 4 miles with 3 very steep hills to get over.  There was perfect spring weather with blue sky and no wind although the heat and dehydration started to get to Jo on the second hill from the finish and she massively slowed.  She finished in 2:20:26 in 271st position out of 387 and 45th female.