What a weekend for Jimmy Craig. Yesterday, he ran the fastest leg for Barlick in the Road Relays and today, instead of putting his feet up, he took part in this race.
Ted Mason was there and both Jimmy and Ted have their eyes on the 2015 BOFRA championship title. If Ted had won today, the championship race would have been over. The only way to keep the title race alive was for Jimmy to get a win.
Jimmy found it tough after yesterday. He set off in front, but half way up the hill, Ted passed him and was slowly pulling away. When Jimmy got to the summit, he felt like he could not move his legs, but he dug deep and managed to get them moving again and pushed hard. He caught Ted on the descent, passed him and pulled away, but it was a hard and close race.
It is now down the the last race at Wasdale Head to decide who wins the title.
In the ladies race, Angela Donlan finished 2nd lady and 1st LV40 and in the junior races, we had three girls.
1 Jimmy Craig 18:53
34 John Boothman 25:40
38 Angela Donlan 26:22 2nd Lady, 1st LV40
48 Craig Child 27:34
U12 Girls
11 Jenna Boothman 11:4
U9 Girls
19 Clover Edwards 6:29
21 Chloe Boothman 6:44
The Barlick lads took to the roads again in the northern 6 stage following on from the 5th place in the North west 4 stage relays and the silver Lancashire medal. The six quickest after Matt Lalor were picked because he was on holiday. Jimmy Craig was 2nd quickest last week but was quickest Barlicker on the day and came home 19th after the fast and furious first leg. He was only 50 seconds behind the leg winner just to show you how stacked the field was. Next up was Chris Singleton who pulled a few places back and brought the team home in 16th. Gary Shaw also had a quality run and consolidated the 16th position. Marc Hartley then took up the baton and pulled 3 places back and the team were sniffing a top 10 finish. Tom Corrigan pulled another place back to get the team up to 12th. Ian Livesey then ran hard and pulled another spot back to bring the team home in 11th overall. This week the lads were first Lancashire team beating lLncs champs Preston and Blackburn. A cracking performance which bodes well for the 12 stage, with the quality the club now possess'.
The winner of this race was Danny Hope and hot on his tail in second place was the ever improving Luke Maude. Richard Lowther and Nic Kendal allso took part. The following appear to be the times and positions of the Barlickers.
2 Luke Maude 1:08:29
26 Richard Lowther 1:21:11
43 Nic Kendall 1:40:26
1 Lucas PAYNE 18:12
78 Kathryn PAYNE 28:40
92 Susan HIRD 29:47
116 Graham WADSWORTH 31:54
131 Julie BRYAN 33:19
138 Patricia WADSWORTH 36:04 New PB
48 Craig CHILD 22:38 New PB
Peter Wilkinson was our sole representative at Garstang and finished 88th in a time of 1hr 53. It's a tough hilly course, but Peter managed to snaffle the V60 category as well as the V65 category.
The absence of Ben Mounsey left the Yorkshireman Half Marathon wide open this year. At the head of the race, there was a group of 5, including Julian Hood, pushing on up Lee Lane. This number whittled down to 3 along the conduit and up onto the tops towards the old Withins pub. Julian and the eventual winner, Joe Baxter pushed on until mile 10, when Joe slowly pulled away and established a good lead by the end to take first place with Julian coming home 2nd.
Further down the field were Rob Hodgkinson and Lucy Beresford. Rob finished in 32nd place with a time of 2:05:04 and Lucy was 132nd with a time of 2:36:57. There were around 300 in the race.
Pete Beresford ran in the full marathon which he completed in 4:42:45.
Fresh from winning her bronze medal yesterday in the road relays Emma Bailey set off today along with James Tingle, John Boothman, Mark Nutter and Jack Ingham to take part in this race. The finishing times were:
505 James Tingle 1:27:28
2005 john Boothman 1:37:26
3179 Emma Bailey 1:42:05
11568 Mark Nutter 2:00:09
20246 Jack Ingham 2:15:21
Mark Nutter finished in spectacular fashion. He entered the last mile on 1:46 and was on for a 1:55 finish. However, with 200m to go, he decided to a Mo Farrah impersonation and sprint for the finish. Instead of hitting the finish line, his blood sugar level reached rock bottom and he hit the ground instead. Thankfully, some friendly Scottish lads helped him up and dragged him over the line.
Following on from his cracking run in the road relays yesterday, Jimmy Craig followed it up by winning this race and beating Carl Bell in the process.
Michael Alexander found this race tougher than he expected, but he still finished it in 3:33:44, which was a new PB by 26 minutes
Lee Parrington and Mark Holgate had cracking runs in the Pilling 10k. Lee won the race in 34.40 and Mark was 3rd in 36.54. That's Lee's 3rd win in the last two months.
This race is quite unusual in that all age groups run together and compete over the same course. It was a little sad therefore to see only a few runners turn up and take part. As it is only a short stroll from his back door, it was perhaps inevitable that Dave Halliday and his lad were there. They finished as follows:
10 Dave Halliday 14:34
20 Elliott Halliday 18:06
The ladies A team won Lancashire bronze medals.
A Team - 3rd
Jennifer Hird (5) 21:21
Lorraine Slater (4) 21:31
Emma Bailey (3) 22:06
B Team - 8th
Angela Donlan (8) 22:02
Leanne Dinsdale (8) 22:15
Lucy Beresford (8) 23:44
Two of our men, Matt Lalor and Jimmy Craig were both in the top ten fastest Lancashire lap times and we had three teams in the Lancashire top ten with our A team winning silver. The A team was 5th overall out of Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire.
A Team - 2nd
Marc Hartley (7) 16:47
Chris Singleton (6) 16:46
Matt Lalor (3) 16:17
Ian Livesey ((2) 16:40
B Team - 5th
Jimmy Craig (4) 16:22
Tom Corrigan (4) 16:53
Nick Treitl (5) 16:56
Luke Maude (5) 17:33
C Team - 7th
Garry Shaw (8) 16:50
Russell Parrington (7) 17:16
Chris Smale (8) 17:56
Stephen Chew (7) 17:56
D Team - 15th
Andrew Chew (15) 18:26
Andy Berry (15) 18:56
Pete Beresford (15) 20:35
Lee Edwards (15) 20:08
6 John BOOTHMAN 21:59
7 Mark LOVESEY 22:03 New PB
15 Daniel CHEW 23:48
25 Jenna BOOTHMAN 28:43
46 Graham WADSWORTH 33:20 New PB
The main aims of the club are to increase the participation of running in Barnoldswick and to keep organised running as accessible as possible.