First of all, those watching this race saw history being made, as an incredible performance from Victoria Wilkinson saw her come home in 13th position overall as first woman and settting a new women's record of 3:09:19 in the process. This was quite an incredible achievement from an incredible athlete.
We had a record number of Barlickers out in this race, many running their first peaks race and they produced some feisty performances. First home was Julian Hood who ran a superb race and secured himself a top twenty finish, knocking 6 minutes from his time of last year. Next behind Julian was Jimmy Craig, who had a ding dong battle with peaks first time David Poole. David was leading the pair at the top of Ingleborough, but Jimmy dug deep into those famous reserves and managed to cross the line just ahead of his team mate. A great performance from David to make a race of it with Jimmy.
5 Sarah Tipler 19:51 New PB
13 Scott Boardman 19:15
14 Scott McCredie 19:18 New PB
20 Ian Cocks 19:53
93 Jenna Boothman 24:00
143 Nicola Muller 25:48
151 Tony Duffy 26:06 New PB
158 Garth Duffy 26:13
162 Cloey Mason 26:22
165 Anne Marie Beech 26:25
231 Logan McCredie 28:48
234 Chloe Boothman 28:53 New PB
260 Ciara Duffy 29:42
281 Wendy Duffy 30:22
This year saw 12 teams from Barlick take to the startline of the Bunny Run Relays. Thomas Corrigan got his team off to a good start recording the 3rd fastest leg time of the evening with Captain Chew bringing them home in 2nd place. Shaun, Tipler and Berry managed to secure 1st mixed team and Boothman, Elcock and Smale took 1st V50 team. It was also great to see the juniors out mixing it with the adults and the Barlick Boyz managed a creditable 41st place out of 102 teams!
2 Barlick Bunny Boppers 28:41
Thomas Corrigan 9:16 Craig Shearer 9:55 Stephen Chew 9:30
42 Andy Berry 32:29
155 Hannah Newbold 43:41
305 Ian Livesey 2:39:42
This is a very much of an up and a down race with much of the climbing not long after the start.. The hard training regime undertaken by Rachel Villiers is paying off and once more she won the ladies race. Scott Boardman had a good race to lead the Barlickers home and finish in 11th place and the ever improving Paul Elcock was not far behind those two to finish in 16th place.
11 Scott Boardman 41:48
14 Rachel Villiers 42:00 (1st Lady)
16 Paul Elcock 42:57
146 finishers.
Failure to get sufficient numbers out in enough races has meant that we have not been in contention as teams in many of the age groups. Once more, our U11 boys have done well by winning bronze medals, but they were our only team finishers. There were some good individual performances, notably Harley Treitl finishing 10th in the U11 boys and Jack Villiers who was 10th in the U13 boys.
For most of the first year of the club, we had only one lady member, so our women have been a little behind our men in team events. However, as our female membership has increased, they have grown into a wonderful supportive group and this is now paying off in team events such as this league. Last year, our women gained promotion from the lowly third division and by turning out and working together, this year, they became division two champions. Not only did they win their league, but they won it in style, by winning every race of the season. Following on from that, they were also champions in the V35 League. But it does not stop there. The women are working as a group and for most races, many numbers turned out. Cross country is nothing if it is not a team sport and this turning out in numbers and supporting each other has paid off, resulting in the ladies B team gaining promotion from Division Three to replace our A team there. It has certainly been a season to remember.
It was October 2013, in the first year of the club’s existence, that we joined this league in division four. In what has been a remarkable journey, we gained promotion every subsequent year to the next division, culminating this year in becoming the league champions. Not only did we win the league as a team, but the club also took the honours in the individual competition, with Tom Corrigan comfortably beating James Douglas from Border Harriers to become overall league champion. On reading this, anyone not knowing this league, might think that we had been up against a host of mediocre clubs. On the contrary, we were opposed by many top quality clubs in the Lancashire area (and beyond). The main differerence between us was that our top runners were prepared to turn out for each event and represent their club and that perhaps aptly demonstrates the spirit within the club.
53 Heather Mitchell 29:12
This was Andrew Collins' first time at Skipton and he had an exciting tussle with Lee Athersmith, just beating him to the line by one second and coming first in this run.
1 Andrew Collins 17:29
82 Susan Hird 28:14
Young Jack Villiers has certainly taken to racing, this being his third race in four days. The first three home was a repeat of last week, except that they all recorded faster times. It is good to see a couple of our new female runners out racing - these races are absolutely ideal for getting used to off road running.
33 Chris Smale 17:44
58 Jack Villiers 19:04
64 Sarah Tipler 19:13
107 Paul Elcock 20:48
120 John Boothman 21:20
169 Victoria Peel 23:04
172 Jenna Boothman 23:12
254 Anne-Marie Beech 28:08
The main aims of the club are to increase the participation of running in Barnoldswick and to keep organised running as accessible as possible.