LSARRC News 16th October 2018

Another Fine Mess…..

Lytham ladies at Ulverston XC

Saturday saw the first meet of the mid-Lancs cross-country season in Ulverston, Cumbria, the birthplace of Stan Laurel.  The races took place in the tail end of Storm Callum – heavy rain, thick mud and plenty of standing water ensured the course was a fine mess! Despite the conditions this event was well organised and well marshalled by Glaxo Road Hill Harriers.

Even with atrocious travelling conditions, Lytham St Anne’s Road Runners fielded two teams in each of the senior men’s and senior ladies’ categories. The newly promoted senior men’s “A” team finished fifth overall with Chris McCarthy leading the charge in 10th position. Mike Toft and Joe Greenwood also finished in the top thirty. The result means senior men now hold third position in the top division, an excellent start to the season.

Jo Goorney, Catherine Carrdus and Mel Koth all finished in the top twenty of the senior ladies’ race to claim fourth place overall. As all of these three are in the LV45 age category it is no surprise that Lytham ladies were first in the FV35 and FV45 categories. In these categories the ladies have already performed better than in the whole of last season which augurs well for this one.

Full senior results from Ulverston.
Men: Chris McCarthy 36:20, 10th; Mike Toft 36:45, 17th; Joe Greenwood 37:18, 21st; Neil Tate 40:06, 63rd; Tom Howarth 40:46, 71st; Andrew Unsworth 41:15, 79th; Paul Veevers 41:52, 35:50; Ross McKelvie 42:13, 94th; Terry Hellings 47:45, 179th; John Bertenshaw 49:34, 194th; Mark Hughes 50:09, 198th; Jason Sheridan 59:58, 240th and Nigel Simpkin 60:18, 241st.
Ladies: Jo Goorney 28:30, 10th, LV45 2nd, Catherine Carrdus 29:12, 14th, LV45 3rd; Mel Koth 30:23, 16th, LV45 5th; Kirsten Burnett 37:48, 95th; Debbie Francis 43:26, 132nd; Gill Oliver 48:29, 148th and Sarah Bagshaw 51:57, 156th.

Despite the best efforts of storm Callum 12 hardy Lytham juniors made the trip to Ulverston on Saturday 13th for the first fixture of the 2018/2019 Mid Lancs cross country league.

The first race of the day and suffering the worst of the weather was the U11 girls 2.2k race.  First home for Lytham was Clemmie Tierney finishing 27th in 10:32 with Ellie Francis making her debut for Lytham just 2 seconds and one place behind.  Completing the Lytham contingent and bringing the team home in 8th place were sisters Leoma and Rosa Gill finishing in 10:48 for 31st and 13:02 for 38th respectively.

Next up were the under 11 boys also running 2.2k.  Lytham were well represented by Lewis Bentley 19th in 9:10 followed by Eric Wrigley (in his third cross country season despite being only 11) 24th in 9:34, Archie Belfield 25th in 9:38 and Finlay Hughes 33rd in 9:47 bringing the team home in 8th place.

Sophie Bohannon was Lytham’s only representative in the under 13 girls 2.6k race.  Sophie ran an excellent race to finish in 4th place in a very competitive race with just 14 seconds separating the first 4 athletes.

The2.8k under 13 boys’ race was next and Lytham had just 2 representatives.  Frankie Ball arrived with just minute to spare and ran well to finish 22nd in 11:46 with the hugely improved Oliver Thomson 32nd in 12:53.

Lytham’s final representative was under 15 boy Louis Eunson in his first cross country race for 2 ½ years Louis ran well to finish 23rd in 17:47.

Sunday saw 15-year-old Maddy Markham run her first ever 10k race in the Autumn Breaker 10k.  Maddy ran an excellent race to finish in 43:30 for 37th place from 340 finishers and first in her age category by over 15 minutes.

Lytham also had 5 representatives in the Park View junior parkrun.  10-year-old Jayden Richardson was a comfortable winner in 8:14 with Finlay Hughes in his second race of the weekend 3rd in 8:29. James McAfee ran a pb to finish 28th in 12:13 with Joshua McAfee 45th in 15:08 and Sophie 49th in 18:11.

On Sunday 8-year-old Max Walker qualified, with a gold medal, for the National British Biathlon championships to be held in Leeds in November. 

Andy Draper at the Yorkshire Marathon

Other news, Felicity Wolohan ran the Yorkshire marathon this weekend and got a PB with 3.05.19, 9th female and 189 overall.  The route starts at the university takes in the city of York and several surrounding Yorkshire villages - along with the high fiving vicar at Stockton on the Forest. We had rain, rain and more rain!

Greg Oulton drove up to Glenridding for the Lakeland Trails 14k Helvellyn race on Saturday. A great race, almost all off road, the rain made for an even more enjoyable route with most (10k or more) of the route turned to streams, with some of the paths being six inches or more under water. With a total of 1100 feet of climb, 600 of them in the first 2 miles which was all uphill with no relief at all. With a steep drop off soon after followed immediately by another 300 foot climb it soon tired out the legs and I was pleased to finish in 1 hour 53 minutes.

The next day Oulton returned to Glenridding for the Ullswater race. The flooding in the area meant the organisers had to resort to their emergency route, which was a slightly shorter 13k. In better weather (not much rain) and better under foot (not too much flooding up the mountains) it did include two killer climbs of 200 feet over quarter of a mile followed soon after by another 600-foot climb over half a mile, a stone staircase with no end in sight. As soon as we reached the top we had to descend a scree slope, dropping 700 feet over just less than a mile. With legs already tired from the previous days race Oulton was more than happy to finish in 1 hour 49 minutes.

Parkruns, unfortunately Lytham parkrun had to be cancelled however Julia Rolfe travelled to Preston and finished the course in 27:34 coming 20th female.  At the Blackpool parkrun James Buckley of Lytham ran 21:36 finishing 4th, Jacqui Murray ran 27:04 for 7th female spot and Laura Byrne ran 28:40 and came 11th female. 

In the junior parkrun on Sunday in Lytham Jayden Richardson was first to finish in 8:14, followed by Finlay Hughes in 8:29 for 3rd.  Other finishers were James and Joshua McAfee and Sophie Tate.  Well done to James who got a new personal best time of 12:13.

LSARRC Illumination run on Thursday night