It was a boggy affair as always at witton park for this years county championships. Elliot Phillips and Jack Villiers were representing the club in the under 13s and both had good runs. The senior ladies then took centre stage, Sarah Tipler, Lorraine Slater and Rachel Villiers ran. Unfortunately, Sarah pulled up after the first lap meaning the ladies had an incomplete team. Looking at the results though, it made no difference to the destination of the team prizes. Lorraine had a solid outing finishing 26th with Rachel Villiers finishing 29th. The men had 7 running with Tom Corrigan having a great run and finishing 11th. Next home was Marc Hartley in 29th and Stephen Chew 30th. Lee Parrington had a solid outing and finished 40th. Another man on the comeback trail is Chris Smale who had a stormer, finishing 2nd vet 50 and 46th overall. Danny Mills had a solid run finishing 2 places back in 48th. Dan Balshaw was making a comeback as well and finished 62nd. The team finished 5th overall which wasn't a disaster considering we were missing Livesey, Lalor, Craig and Singleton amongst others. Onwards to Towneley where hopefully we'll get everyone out.

Under 13 Boys 

21 Elliott Phillips 13:03
30 Jack Villiers 13:50

Senior Ladies 

26 Lorraine Slater 28:53
29 Rachel Villiers 29:45

Senior Men 

11 Thomas Corrigan 33:34
29 Marc Hartley 36:28
30 Stephen Chew 36:32
40 Lee Parrington 37:11
46 Christopher Smale 37:55 (2nd V50)
48 Daniel Mills 38:09
62 Daniel Balshaw 39:31

15 Paul Elcock 21:10
61 David Cockell 24:50
149 Susan Hird 29:38
170 Anne Marie Beech 31:37

A New Year and a new start for Chewy who decided three months ago that this would be his first race back.  He knew that it would be a fast and furious race, having done it five years ago.  It was quite boggy up to the giants tooth summit.  On the approach to the summit, there was a leading group of six, led by Joe Crossfield, who had pulled away from the rest of the pack.   Ali Burns from Valley Striders made a decisive break on the descent, taking the lead which he held until the finish.  There was only about 40 seconds separating the top 5 which made it a good competitive outing.  

This was Shaun & Stephen Chew's first outing since the Calderdale Way relay last May and Stephen is happy being up there again.  Shaun had a good run to finish 8th and Nick Kendall also had a good run to finish 27th. 

Thanks must go to Ian Lewis and Caren Crabtree for putting on a well organised race.

1 Ali Burns 18:02
4 Stephen Chew 18:31
8 Shaun Chew 19:27
27 Nick Kendall 21:10

The last race of the year attracted some top runners and it was won by Chris Farrell of Horwich RMI in a time of 41:37.

15 Luke Maude 46:28
16 Julian Hood 46:38
153 John Boothman 59:25
167 Paul Elcock 60:30
318 Karen Naylor 69:52
395 Richard Treitl 81:54