Weekend racing...
Steve Cale leads the charge at the 'Canter'
Bitterly cold winds, rain and snow did nothing to stop hundreds of hardy fell runners heading onto the hills and mountains this weekend for some great fell racing at the Haworth Hobble, Cardington Mill Canter and Brough Law…
Over in Northern Ireland there was the some racing at the season-opener Slieve Guillion, with Stephen Cunningham and Shirleen O’Kane taking the wins:
Seventy one hardy mountain runners started the opening race of the Northern Ireland mountain running season at Slieve Gullion in County Armagh. In wintery conditions, competitors were faced with poor visibility as they took on the 6.9km course, with 460 metres of climbing.
Full report and results via the Northern Ireland Running page here.
Across the Irish Sea on Saturday 40-odd North Wales fell runners also hit the slopes for the Ras Moel Tryfan race. John Parkinson and Becki Law were the winners, with images and results online at the WFRA page here.
Becki Law
Over the Border there was a great turn-out as ever for the tough Cardington Mill Canter. It was more of a sprint finish than a canter as it prevailed with Mercia’s Steve Cale (41:42) just holding off Tim Werrett (41:48), with Paul Jones making it a Mercia 1-2-3.
Lauren Jeska added yet more class to the women’s race as she took the win and the course record to boot, in 46:36. Another classy performance came in the form of Mel Price who was second in 48:19, ahead of Emily Millington (58:32) in third.
Some cracking shots from Al Tye are here with results via the Mercia site here.
Lauren Jeska at the Cardington Mill Canter
Saturday’s monsterously hard Haworth Hobble / Wuthering Hike produced an amazing 315 finishers of this 32-mile event, in what could be described as ‘challenging’ conditions of high winds, rain, snow and the like.
Chester Tri’s Duncan Harris came out on top in a time of 4:22, with Toby Evans and Kevin Hoult following him home. First lady was Josie Greenhalgh in 57th overall.
Results are now online via the KCAC site here, awaiting some race images, however Ian Charters managed to get some fly-on-the-wall shots from the start / finish here – showing some tired looking people!
Leeds City runner and GB mountain international Adam Osbourne had a chilly run-out at Windmills Whizz yesterday, taking a narrow win ahead of Chris Smithard in 37:23. Anna Anderson looks to have been the first lady in these results posted on the FRA forum.
Gavin Bland continued his ‘comeback’ at the Brough Law race over in Northumberland on Saturday, taking the win ahead of Paul Sanderson and Bruce Crombie. Lorna Young was first lady. Results, images (Andy Russell) and a blog report from Phil Green all online at the NFR page here.
See our report from Rob Hope on Saturday’s Stan Bradshaw Pendle Round here, and we are still awaiting news on the Ian Roberts race, so keep an eye on the FRA race forum for those updates…
Runners at the 2013 Brough Law race
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