Skylines, windmills and lots of mud

Mud, mud, mud and more mud. It’s been a bit of a dirty weekend for our hardy Harriers! A little bit of wind and rain doesn’t really get in the way of such a tough bunch. You’ve been ploughing through cross country, up and down fell and along blustery promenades with gusto this week. There’s even been a bit of cyclocross as well.

Club News and Announcements

Lee Mill Fell Relays – sign ups

This relay event, on Sunday 29^th November, is set in the Lee Mill Quarry site. 10km / 6.2m & Climb: 340m / 1115ft. Teams of four runners. All four runners will run individual over a 10k flagged course.

The club is entering teams and are looking for names, please contact your captain ASAP if you would like to run.

Dave Motley 07810 895862

Kath Brady 07899722922, kabrady64@hotmail.com

This is a hard and demanding route, possibly run in wintery conditions. Full kit including full waterproof bodycover, hat, gloves, compass and whistle must be carried. Stringent kit check will be made to all competitors. A map of the course will be provided on registering.

Weekly Roundup – Assistant Editor required!

If you’re one of the around 400+ people who view our website news roundup each week and want to help ensure its continued publication then this is the job for you! Our Media Manager, Adrienne Olszewska, does a fantastic job producing the weekly roundups but is not able to produce the roundups all 52 weeks of the year ( because I do like to go on holiday occasionally !).So, the club is looking for a Website News Editor to produce the weekly roundup approximately once a month. Good writing and IT skills are needed for this important role. You’ll also need to be able to commit to finding around four hours to produce each roundup so that publication is normally on Monday.

We need more help to make our club even better. If you think you could be our Website News Editor then please get in touch with Jim Hickie or Adrienne Olszewska.

Saturday 7 November

Cheshire 10K

John Hartley was our sole competitor in this popular 10K race. He finished in 60^th place with a time of 37:54 and was 2^nd V55 finisher on a wet and windy race around the flat and rural roads of Antrobus. 1116 runners took part.

John Hartley at the Chester 10K

Full Results

Podium 5K

Well done to Laura Hesketh who took part in this fast 5k organised by Chris Barnes. She was the first lady in the race with a time of 18:17 in what look like pretty grim conditions!

Laura Hesketh at the Podium 5k . Photo by David Belshaw

Full Results

Red Rose Cross Country League – Hyndburn

Mud, mud, glorious mud! After what seemed like a never-ending downpour the rain sort of stopped and one thing was for certain; there would be mud. Lots and lots of it! There’s a slightly evil start to the race that involves contouring round an incline and the U11 boys who started first ended up with half the field sliding down the hill! So depending on your attitude to the black stuff it was either a heavenly course or something not so nice.

U11 Boys

Team Position 1^st ( D Thompson | J Bentham | F Stubbs )

Finlay Stubbs and Jenson Bentham. Photo by David Belshaw

A great run from Dexta Thompson who battled through to first place. Jenson Bentham also put in a strong performance to finish in fifth. Finlay Stubbs made up the final counter in the team and William Nicholls, Matthew Jackson and Joshua McKay all ran well on a tough course.

U11 Girls

Team Position 8^th ( E Dorrington | H White | I Ferguson )

U11 Girls team already a bit mucky at the start of the race. Photo by Adrienne Olszewska

Ella Dorrington was our first U11 girl battling through the muddy course to finish in 4^th place. Helana White and Imogen Ferguson were also team counters. All of our girls looked to be at ease on this quagmire of a course despite the loss of a shoe at times. Well done!

U13 Boys

Team Position 7^th ( J McKay | A Stevenson | L Jackson )

Jackson McKay in the U13 boys race. Photo by Nicholas Olszewski

Jackson McKay was our first finisher in 5^th place. Adam Stevenson and Lennon Jackson both performed strongly as the course started to become particularly boggy.

U13 Girls

Team Position 3^rd ( M Stubbs | L Thompson | C Bentham )

U13 Girls ready to race at the Red Rose Hyndburn fixture. Photo by Adrienne Olszewska

A fine run from Millie Stubbs earned her a 4^th place finish. Liberty Thompson also had a good run despite a dodgy knee to finish in 15^th place. Claudia Bentham made up the team counters. Some determined performances followed from their team mates through mud that was now ankle deep in places.

U15 Boys

Thomas Bradley was our only competitor in this age category, finishing in 14^th place.

U15 Girls

Running solo today was no deterrent for Briony Holt who had a storming run finishing in 2^nd place.

U17 Men

Curtis Holt and Simon Wilshaw were running in this category. 5^th place for Curtis and 10^th for Simon.

 U17 Women

Another solo runner, Alice finished in 10^th place.

U20 Women

Bethany Quinn was our sole competitor in this age category and finished in 7^th place.

Ladies

Team Positions

Team 7^th ( H Leathley | O O’Mahony | A Shian )

Vets Team 8^th (A Shian | V Heys | I Roche )

Clayton Ladies, Donna Airey, Orlaith O’Mahony and Julia Rushton, all shiny and clean before the ladies race. Photo by Adrienne Olszewska

Well done to our ladies for giving their all on very tough and muddy course. Helena Leathley was our first lady finisher and was 7^th overall in a time of 21:59. Orlaith O’Mahony also finished strongly in 25:10. Third counter was Angela Shian. Some gutsy running from the Clayton Ladies on show today.

Helena Leathley, first Clayton finisher in the ladies race at the Red Rose Cross Country Hyndburn fixture. Photo by David Belshaw

Men

Team Positions

Team 4^th ( J McDonald | T Brewster | G Pier| R Stevenson | C Helliwell | D Motley )

Vets Tea 3^rd (R Stevenson | C Helliwell | M Aspinall | A Orr)

Deep discussion at the cross country. Photo by Alan McDonald

Great finish for Jordan McDonald who was 6^th overall in the mens race. Some great performances from our hardy male runners on an extremely churned up and muddy course.

Richard Stevenson with Carl Helliwell following. Photo by David Belshaw

 Full Results

Shepherds Skyline

Described as a fast, muddy course – with a steep descent off Stoodley Pike for the kamikaze descenders, immediately followed by a stiff climb back up the hill for the stout-legged amongst you. 232 runners completed the course. Eighteen Clayton-le-Moors Harriers took part in this race which was also the final race of the current club fell championship.

Chris Holdsworth at the Shepherds Skyline race. Photo by Woodentops

Christopher Holdsworth was our first Clayton runner finishing in 3^rd place overall. Garry Wilkinson was 1^st V50 finisher and Katy Thompson was 1^st L60 finisher.

Rachel Todd and Stephen Fish at the Shepherds Skyline race. Photo by Woodentops

Full Results

Sunday 8 November

Ilkley Cyclocross

Report from Andrew Armstrong

The mud arrived.

The world of Cyclocross has been waiting for the mud ever since the season started and, finally, this weekend delivered it in lumps. Great big sticky lumps that bind together with grass and leaves, that render expensive bikes near useless and gets everywhere. The kind of mud that takes days to clean off the bike

Paul Hesketh, left, 3rd place in the Ilkley Cyclocross

Ilkley Cross is a low key club run event that combines most of the best bits of Cross in a compact course at the Ilkley Lido. It has fast sweeping sections, tight technical hairpins, treacherously boggy climbs and steep descents between the trees into gloop filled bomb holes. What’s not to like!

Two Harriers made the trip to Ilkley. Paul Hesketh had a score to settle; having failed to finish two races due to mechanical problems he openly admitted to having ‘spat the dummy’ at his last race and thrown his bike in the hedge. He had better luck this time and claimed a podium position with his third place Vet finish. I came significantly further down the field and looked a lot filthier, thanks to a ‘technical sit-down’ on one of the off camber hairpins. We also managed to dodge the rain, which started after the presentation had finished.

All in all; a successful weekend; with plenty more muddy fixtures to look forward to!

Paul Hesketh was third overall and third vet, Andrew Armstrong was 12th, field of 47.

Wadsworth Half Trog

A local classic taking in all the best terrain of the full Trog, without the full distance. Plenty of varied tough terrain. And perhaps a bit of mud! Jeffrey Pickup and Richard Bellaries took part in this 9.3 mile race with 1400ft of climb.

Richard Bellaries at the Wadsworth Half Trog. Photo by Woodentops

Full Results

Windmill 10K

Amanda Duffy reports

Amanda Duffy at the Windmill 10k

We arrived at Lytham green on not the best of days to be racing. Still abit of wind and rain won’t put us runners off! As it was Remembrance Sunday we had a 2 minute silence and then the race was off. It was a slightly different route than last year which took us off the green and on the road down towards Fairhaven Lake, we ran a lap around the lake and back on to the sea front only to be hit by very strong winds! It was a battle back down towards the windmill to finish back on Lytham green. Overall an excellent race

 Full Results

Parkrun roundup

The foul weather didn’t put too many of our hardy Harriers off on Saturday morning with a pretty good turnout all things considered. The exception being Bianca Bennett who continues her tour of Australian parkruns by taking part in the St Peters parkrun in Sydney where the weather was considerably better than here in blighty!

Bianca Bennett enjoying much nicer weather than Burnley at the St Peters, Sydney parkrun.

Bit of a contrast! Not such nice weather in Burnley. A rather soggy Martin Brady.

Burnley parkrun – A total of 214 runners took part.

Cuerden Valley parkrun – A total of 126 runners took part.

Dewsbury parkrun – A total of 66 runners took part.

Fell Foot parkrun, Newby Bridge – A total of 95 runners took part.

Keswick parkrun – A total of 108 runners took part.

St Peters parkrun – A total of 311 runners took part.