Dave Neilands reports . . . .

At the same time as several thousand runners were being rescued from the Lake District fells a hundred or so miles further south and in similar weather conditions Tim Warner of Garstang Running Club was completing the Snowdonia Marathon – for some reason it took him a bit longer than usual!  Finishing 583rd of the 1133 competitors Tim completed the largely flat course in 4 hours 17 minutes nearly 2 and a half hours ahead of the last finisher.  At the other end of the distance spectrum the Green Drive 5 miler at Lytham was a complete contrast to the marathon with Graham Tagg finishing 58th of the 377 finishers in 31.32 minutes with Heather Cronshaw 297th in 43.14, Denise Hughes 302nd in 43.42 and Paul Cronshaw 355th in 49.44 minutes.  It is possible that the Green Drive 5 was little preparation when Graham travelled south (?) to the Hell up North Trail race in the Delamere Forest in Cheshire . One gets the impression that it must have been quite a tough race as one runner went down at the “Bog of Doom” and had to be rescued by para medics.  No such fate befell Graham as he finished 94th of the 1446 finishers.

Continuing his comeback from nothing Pete Gelderd finished 243rd at the Accrington 10k in 54.26 minutes with his chauffeur Denise Hughes a few places and approximately a minute behind Pete. Too honest by far she “owned up” that the organizers mistakenly gave her a finishing time of 51 minutes, especially as she was far from happy with her actual finishing time – age shall weary them.  Continuing his refound enthusiasm it was the Through the Villages 8 mile and 781 yards (approximately) race near Chorley for Pete.  He followed home Gary Heyworth, 123rd in 1 hour 2.11 minutes and Greg Hunter 138th in 1.03.19 with Pete 254th of the 304 competitors in 1.16.17.  It is always a good idea to set “targets” when competing in races and one of Pete’s “targets” was a competitor Pete had raced against many times in the past.  How pleased was Pete when he beat that runner – your correspondent has promised not to mention that the runner in question is over 70 years of age – so it will not be mentioned.

“Distant” members Alex and Fiona Brown  took part in races close to home in Nottingham with Alex finishing 239th of 882 finishers in the 10 miler in 1 hour 14 minutes, whilst Fiona, returning to racing after the birth of her second child went for the multi terrain Robin Hood Adventure Challenge 10k.  On an undulating course Fiona finished 158th of the 288 finishers in 55.48 minutes.  Undulations were of course the order of the day at the Helvellyn 15k trail race in the Lake District where Martyn Knowles finished 116th, Tim Warner 126th, Julie Graham 203rd and Philippa Olive 224th of the 290 finishers, in what by all accounts was a brilliant race.

9/11/08

Dave Neilands

 

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