It Was a Quiet Week Locally for Athletics As the Man Action Was the English National Cross

Gemma Owen running in last week’s Mid Lancs but running well at Preston parkrun

It was a quiet week locally for athletics as the man action was the English National Cross Country Championships at a muddy Parliament Hill Fields in London. Wesham did not enter any members into this event this year. There were record entries with over 800 women running and over 2000 men. While t was thick mud underfoot over the large lap it was a bright and dry day, very pleasant running.

Garry Barnett was 19th in the Standish Hall Trail Race near Wigan on Saturday afternoon finishing 3rd M45 in 43:15 for the 6 miles and 500ft ascent around two laps of gravel tracks and woodland. Garry finished 19th overall. Kath Hoyer finished 18th woman and 1st M55 in 53:04.

Garry Barnett had run very close to his personal best in the Verona Half Marathon scoring 1:24:32 for 322nd place and 52nd M45. His chip time of 1:24:05 beats his previous best time by 15 seconds. Alan Taylor was 3408th and 678th in 1:50:03, 1:49:34 chip time, a good result. There were over 8000 runners in the race and the pair had a great weekend.

Kath Hoyer was out racing again on Sunday in the Lostock 6 race south of Horwich and she finished 15th woman and 1st W55 again in 46:01 for the undulating 6 miles, 97th overall. She was just ahead of Dave Waywell who finished 2nd M70 in a head-to-head with Horwich runner John Parker. The pair finished 4 seconds apart in 46:12 and 46:16 in 99th and 100th places overall.

Two laps along the Blackpool sea front in strong winds and steady rain the Great North West Half Marathon was quite a challenging run. Emma Pass finished 16th woman in 1:40:53 and in 231st place overall in a race with 1200 runners. George Kennedy was 280th with a time of 1:43:16 to finish 8th M55. Clocking the same time Nicola Unsworth as the pair train and prepare for this year’s London Marathon finished 281st and 27th woman and 7th W40 with 1:43:16. Sara Ward was 52nd woman in 1:49:25 placing an excellent 3rd W45, also finishing 398th overall.

In the Preston parkrun on a bright Saturday morning Alex Rowe ran 18:15 to give him an M55 85.66% age graded performance. Steve Myerscough clocked 18:51 for M40 72.94% and David Taylor ran 19:02 for 67.78%. Jason Blagden ran a time of 20:44 for an M40 performance of 67.36% and Elliot Costello 21:18 for 60.56%. George Kennedy recorded 21:38 for an M55 score of 72.27% with Nicola Unsworth running 21:40 for W40 72.62%. Gemma Owen had a time of 23:11 for a performance of 64.27%.