Last Saturday, 9th March was a red letter day for Clayton-le-Moors Harriers. Breton Holdsworth claimed a brilliant first place at the super tough Dentdale Run, a 14 mile road race. Enjoying his first-ever race win Bret clocked 1:24:42 and had a 40 second margin over second place, with over 300 others trailing in his wake.
At the same, in Barley, Barrie Walmsley and Keith Thompson supported by a legion of Clayton members, were staging the 3rd Stan Bradshaw Pendle Round which saw around 200 runners, including over 30 in orange black and white, take on the 9.5 mile course which incorporates 2000 feet of ascent. Former English and British fell running champion, Rob Hope broke the course record, defeating top fell runners Lloyd Taggart, Carl Bell and Ian Holmes in the process. Clayton’s top runner was Dave Edmondson in 18th place, closely followed by new dad, Dave Motley, our fell captain. Next came Mike Wallis and Phil Hall first and 2nd Vet 50s respectively. Jean Brown was third lady home and Linda Lord won the LV60 category. In the men’s V60 race, Jack Holt and Pete Booth held a re-run of last year’s encounter with Pete reversing the 2012 result by crossing the line 3 seconds in front of Jack to win the category.
Meanwhile, just over the (Yorkshire) border, Dave Naughton was winning the MV50 category in the Wuthering Hike (aka Haworth Hobble). Dave finished in 11th place, clocking 4:50:08 for the 31 mile course. Just 7 minutes and 6 places behind was Martin Terry, second MV50. Not to be outdone by her male counterparts, Wendy Dodds won the ladies V60 category in just over 6 hours.
Clayton ‘Brummie’, Paul Shackleton performed well at the Cardington Mill Canter while, closer to home on Sunday, there were plenty of Clayton representatives at the Roddlesworth Roller (seniors) and Daffodil Doddle (juniors) races run from Abbey Village.