All pictures courtesy of Sport Sunday
317 Des Walkden 41:26 PB
371 John Boothman 42:14 PB
430 Michael Thistlethwaite 43:48
619 Richard Starkie 47:32 PB
964 James Stead 58:22 PB
1023 Helen Stead 1:01:51 PB
1060 Abi Park 1:07:49 PB
10 John Boothman 23:33
A few Barlickers turned out to run off the excesses of Christmas on this Boxing Day run. The race winner was James Logue of Calder Valley and the first lady home was Olivia Walwyn of Altrincham, who was 10th overall. The Barlickers finished as follows:
8 Sam Wadsworth 26:10
55 James Wadsworth 30:38
59 John Boothman 30:58
79 Lloyd Davies (U16) 33:39
Lloyd Davies was the first home of the seven junior boys in this race.
Results
The first news of this race is that it was won by Tom Adams of Ilkley in a time of 30:51. The first lady home was in 35th position overall and was Olivia Walwyn of Altrincham in a time of 37:46. The Barlickers finished:
118 John Boothman 42:31
198 Dave Halliday 47:05
400 finishers.
U8
54 Tabitha Berry 5:23
U16
4 Lloyd Davies 13:40
Barlick Junior, Jenna Boothman, seems to be getting the running bug after turning out for the Barlick Santa Fun Run and was at the Park Run today. The positions and times for all the Barlickers were:
3 Lucas PAYNE 20:16
35 Richard STARKIE 28:38
55 James STEAD 33:42
62 Helen STEAD 38:08
63 John BOOTHMAN 38:41
64 Jenna BOOTHMAN 38:42
These results are a little late in being posted, as Abigail forgot to mention her club when she registered. It was her first time in the park runs and she finished as follows:
51 Abigail PARK 36:26
This league is divided into four divisions and any new clubs joining the league must start in division four. Unfortunately, when the club results are published, they do not separate them out into the different divisions and they are all clumped together. To make matters worse, they do not publish the divisional tables as the season progresses and it is only now that these tables have been compiled. These show that the top of Division Four is as follows:
| Club | Races | Points |
| Barlick Fell Runners | 3 | 21 |
| Liverpool Harriers & AC | 2 | 20 |
| Lancaster University | 2 | 17 |
One thing we have learnt so far is that results can be very unpredictable. Everyone felt that the race at Hyndburn was very tough, which it was, but we came away with 9 points. On the other hand, the team performed well at Liverpool, yet only amassed 4 points. That was down to the fact that it attracted a lot of local clubs, many of whom ran in Division Four. If a lesson is to be learnt from this, it is that we need to turn up at every race, because at the end of the season, they only include your best four races and low scoring races, such as Liverpool, will be ignored and you cannot predict in advance those races where you will score well.
We have made a good start to this league, but the pressure is on us to maintain the momentum.
The next race in the series is on 11 January at Barrow in Furness.
Membership of the club has increased steadily over the past twelve months to the point where we have now signed up member number 100, who is Charlotte Perry.
It does not feel like 12 months since a small group of runners came together to form Barlick Fell Runners and few of those at that initial meeting ever expected that the club would grow so quickly.
There was a good turn out of 17 runners for this head torch 5K run. Six were first timers and there were PBs for:
Rachel Lowther 23:22
Linda Bostock 23:33
Emma Bailey 24:02
Lucy Beresford 25:55
James Stead 27:00
Helen Stead 30:00
Full Results
Tom Mason was our sole representative in this race and he finished in 189th position with a time of 41:56.
The junior races saw the debut run of Cerri Starkie on a muddy course with one large hill. She was happy to complete the run and even happier that she did not finish last.
Whilst one group of Barlickers were taking part in the Gathering Winter Fools Relay, another were at Hyndburn for the next race in this series and it was nice to see Fiona Raby sporting a Barlick vest as our first lady representative in this series. It was probably the hardest race of the series so far and she finished in 50th position out of a field of 121, with a time of 32:13. The positions and times of our men were as follows:
37 Nick Treitl 41:21
69 Rob Weir 43:45
110 Andy Carson 46:31
119 Stuart Bryan 47:18
125 Dan Taylor 47:30
147 Des Walkden 49:15
162 Scott Basistow 51:04
174 Michael Thistlethwaite 52:05
181 James Fent 52:37
John Boothman enjoyed this race so much last year that he returned to give it another go. Last year's snow gave way to high winds which made the ascent very tough, but propelled everyone back down again at a high speed.
Some confusion with the route saw first past the post Rhys Findlay-Robinson of Dark Peak forfeit the win, which was awarded to Danny Hope. John finished in 75th position in a time of 56:55.
There were two great team performances today. For the men, Gary Shaw and Matt Lalor set off well and on their leg trailed just behind the Bingley A team, a position they maintained until the end, finishing in front of the Wharfedale team, who were third. They then handed over to Julian Hood and Stephen Chew who had closed down the gap with Bingley by the time they got to the 'Murder Mile'. At that stage, there was no sign of Wharfedale and Bingley B team had moved into 3rd place. The runners disappeared out of sight as they went across the moors, but when they reappeared, approaching the Keighley Gate Road, they had opened up a huge gap on Bingley and they handed over a three minute lead to third leg team, Andy Berry and Lucas Payne. They set off with much determination and maintained this lead to give a two minute lead to the final runners Shaun Chew & Sam Wadsworth. In the course of this leg, Bingley regained the lead and went on to win the race with a 2 minute lead, which, after the excitement of our strong lead in the middle of the race, was a little disappointing, but on reflection, it was a tremendous achievement for the club, that after only one year in existence, it could push a top club like Bingley so closely.
At the start of the race, there was also much excitement that we were able to field a ladies team and with so many of the team new to running, we were hoping that they would get round and finish in a reasonable position. Well the ladies did the club proud. Rachel Lowther and Linda Bostock took the first leg and handed over to Sarah Tipler and Helen Glover. They ran a tremendous leg, pushing the ladies team into third place. They handed over to Sarah Jarvis and Lucy Beresford who had a good run to hold on to this lead to hand over to final leg runners Emma Bailey and Helen Stead. They ran their hearts out and Helen was absolutely exhausted at the end, but they had done it - they had held on to 3rd place. This was an amazing performance from our girls and augurs well for development for our ladies group in the future.
The top places were:
Men
1 Bingley 'A' 3:23:11
2 Barlick 3:25:17
3 Bingley 'B' 3:37:28
Women
10 Wharfedale 4:18:14
11 Bingley 4:20:55
16 Barlick 5:00:27
The main aims of the club are to increase the participation of running in Barnoldswick and to keep organised running as accessible as possible.