Weekly race round-up 18.9.18

On Friday evening the EHM Night 5K was held in Warrington, as a precursor to the main events of the 10K and half marathon on Sunday. Ben Smithers led the Red Rose group home with a time of 22:16, followed by Samantha Edwards with 23:04, Stuart Isherwood 23:36, David Bayliss 24:01, Tim Nuttall 24:24, Peter O’Grady 25:25, Faisal Ali 27:47, Kathryn Abbott 28:29, Marion O’Grady 29:42 and Gail Dunlop with 37:26.

On Sunday 17^th October, Eliud Kipchoge made history at the 2018 BMW Berlin Marathon by running a world record time of 2:01:39. In the same race, Kris Lowe, making the gradual comeback from injury, recorded a time of 3:42:24 to get his third world series marathon medal. Chris Carter traversed the course in 4:04:18 and Martin Foley got round in 5:38:59.

Closer to home, the English Half Marathon was on the Red Rose Road Runners calendar as a Grand Prix event. The provisional race times for the Red Rose members counting in the Grand Prix event are shown below. Katy Cleece, Samantha Edwards and Victoria Calvert beat their best times for a PB by considerable margins.

Of those opting for the EHM 10K event on the day, Joel Stanier was first back for Red Rose with 48:58, followed by Lisa Bolton 50:13, Jason Spear 52:40, Fiona Michelle who got a PB with 1:05:31 and Gail Dunlop with 1:20:42.

As a further alternative to the EHM Grand Prix race, four Red Rosers braved the extremely inclement conditions for Kendal Sprint triathlon, a 400m pool swim, 20k bike ride and 5k run. Overall results: Dave Raynor 1:21:43, Lynne Kenyon 1:24:56, Fred Lynch 1:26:35 and Annie Owens 1:43:31. Jenny Fairclough provided support as a run route marshal for the event.

Elsewhere, at the Lancaster Castle Marathon, four Red Rosers competed in a race with a sting in the tail: a quarter mile climb up to the castle to finish. First Red Rose was Steve Tingle with 03:22:17, Shane Cliffe 3:51:59, Claire Short 4:29:38 and Gina Biggs 6:32:35.

At the same time, was the Lancaster Castle 10k which saw Gail Bristo  as the first Red Roser back with 56:52, followed by Aimie Midgley   1:04:25, Catherine Morris 1:04:25, Sandra Rolston 1:05:58, Arthur Green won the V70 prize with 1:16:40 and Bernard Elkington won V80 with 1:30:28.

Just south of Chorley town centre was the Yarrow River Splash 10k. A popular trail race with a river crossing or two for good measure. Ray Taylor was first back for Red Rose with 54:59, then Gareth Bell 1:02:34 and Joan Gouldthorpe with 1:04:36.

At Fairhaven Lake, the Fairhaven Flyer 10k was held – named after the ‘Spitfire on a stick’ you can see there. As with most race on the day, there was some rain, but this cleared before the end of the race. First Red Roser finisher was STEVE MURPHY 00:46:58, followed by MATT ASHTON   00:50:47, BRIAN HANLEY   00:54:00, NATALIE SMITH   00:59:51, KAREN SMITH   01:03:31, SUSAN BEARDSWORTH   01:21:16 and MICHAEL TURNER with 01:46:47.

For undoubtedly the hardest challenge of the weekend, Stephen Barlow ran the Hardmoor 60. This was 62 miles of self-navigational trail running along the Cleveland Way coastal route, with hardly any road and a lot of steps. This took 15 hours 44 minutes to complete.

Steve Bullows ran a 10k run in Faversham, Kent In support of Cystic Fibrosis.