LSARRC News 4th April 2017

Felicity Wolohan

Felicity Wolohan is one of Lytham St Annes Road Runners most improved athletes of recent years. To underline this she knocked over 16 minutes off her previous personal best in the Manchester Marathon on Sunday.

Running in near perfect conditions on a superfast course with great crowd support was always going to be advantageous and Felicity took full advantage with a time of 03:14:50. Felicity was also 8th in her category, 49th female and 947th overall in a race between over 8,500 competitors.

Also running for Lytham were Thomas Howarth, Paul Veevers and Kirsten Burnett. Thomas broke the three hour barrier with a time of 02:59:33 to finish 400th. Paul was a bit further back in 1012th, 03:16:03. Meanwhile Kirsten was 5844th with a time of 04:26:13 in her sixth marathon. The dreaded cramp struck during mile 22 to drag her time down but she is still determined to run her seventh marathon in Paris this weekend.

The final club handicap race of the year-long season took place on Thursday.  Mark Selby had a convincing win but the outstanding run of the evening was a PB for Joe Greenwood, the fastest on the winter course by anyone this year.

In a remarkably tight finale to the season Colin Laidlaw came out on top to win the Handicap Plate trophy, just one point ahead of Greg Oulton who takes the runner-up medal and three better than Sue Hawitt. On the night Colin was just three seconds ahead of the next placed person; had he been slightly slower there would not have been a clear winner.

Mel Koth was the first V40 and fourth lady at the Darwin Heritage Half Marathon on Sunday. Finishing 80th overall out of 311, in a time of 1:42:04 Mel happily recorded that she was 1:43 minutes faster than last year. Not an easy task on a course nicknamed the “rollercoaster” due to its hills.

Jo Goorney at Pendle Fell Race

Meanwhile over on the fells Jo Goorney ran the Pendle Hill Fell race, which included the Lancashire Championships. The 4 and a half mile race started by the village hall in Barley and has 1499 feet of ascent including a tough steep climb up Pendle Hill's Big End. 190 brave souls managed this great effort, and Jo was the ninth woman.

Ten-year-old George Denye was at it again on Sunday at the Avenham Park Junior Park Run in Preston. He won it for the seventh time in a new personal best time, and with a new Avenham Park age category record of 7:29. Turning 11 next week will give George a new list of records to break.

Jeremy and Paula McCandless at Lytham Hall parkrun

At the Lytham Hall Parkrun on Saturday LSARRC members took four of the top five places. Chris McCarthy was first with a new pb of 16:52. Andy Draper, Ross McKelvie (new pb) and Neil Tate were the other three. Also achieving new pbs from the club were Eric Wrigley, Stu Wharrior and Paula McCandless.

83 juniors took park in the Lytham Park View Junior Parkrun the following day. LSARRC again provided the winner in Morgan Pritchard, with Eric Wrigley coming fourth and Archie Tate setting himself a new pb of 08:37 to finish fifth. Also setting new pbs were Jack Greaves and Sophie Tate, with Charlotte Thompson running the event for the first time.