Wesham team at the Hunters 10k in Preston on Sunday
The end of January closed with a new race on Sunday tat proved very popular with Wesham members after a poor showing at the Northern Athletics Cross Country Championships the previous day. In the St Annes 10 Miler, complimentary to the triathlon later in the year attracted 256 runners at its first attempt and a reasonably strong field. Won in 56:53 Wesham’s first finisher was Jason Barlow amongst a flurry of Fylde runners, placing 13th and 4th Over-40 in a time of 1:02:10. Steve Myerscough was 20th and 6th Over-40 in 1:05:05 and Lee Barlow 33rd and 12th Over-40 with his time 1:08:37. The Wesham Men’s team placed 3rd but surely would have won a veteran’s team. The women’s winning time was 1:05:32 with Carmel Sullivan Wesham’s first finisher in 3rd place in 1:08:40, 1st Over-50 and 35th overall. Kerry Eccles was 25th woman and 116th overall in 1:22:48 finishing 4th Over-50. Nicola Unsworth was 41st woman and 15th Over-40 in 1:27:02, 143rd overall. The Wesham Women’s team were placed 2nd. Jayne Hurst was 49th and 18th Over-40 in 1:29:11, in 162nd place, and Tanya Barlow finished 56th with 1:30:08, 174th overall. Diane Blagden was 69th with 1:35:29, 201st overall; Karen Davies 77th in 1:36:54 (213th) and Caz Wadsworth 88th with 1:40:48 (227th). On the men’s side Simon Denye finished 54th in 1:12:08; Martin Bates 5th Over-60 and 55th in 1:12:09; Jason Blagden a good run with 1:12:23 for 57th place; alan Hudson 67th and 6th Over-60 in 1:13:52; son-in-law Sean Murray 92nd with 1:19:14; Carl Groome was 109th in 1:21:49; Mark Dobson 144th with 1:27:04; James Danson (Rob senior) was 161st in 1:29:11, 17th Over-50, and Dave Young 181st with 1:30:57, 9th Over-60 at the upper end of his age category.
There were 361 women in the Northern Athletics Cross Country Championships in Knowsley Safari Park around an 8km course on Saturday but only two Fylde finishers and just eight from the West Lancashire area. The winning time was 30:46 with a lead of 44 seconds. Wesham had three starters in the Senior Men’s 12k race around 3 undulating laps in very muddy conditions with 676 finishers. This is tough course when saturated with overnight rain and develops into deep goo in places. Rob Danson was unfortunately spiked twice in the stampede at the start and lost a shoe, ruling him out of any chance of a competition. John Collier finished 494th in 1:03:25 and Nigel Shepherd was 555th with his time 1:07:06.
In the Hunters 10k in Preston on Sunday Garry Barnett finished 21st 37:47 placing 2nd M50. Paul Hetherington was 34th with 39:38Ryan Azzopardi came in 85th with a time of 45:19 and Alan Taylor was 120th in 48:51. Paul Eccles placed 131st with 49:33 and Jon McLeod was 173rd in 52:58. Madeleine Azzopardi finished 218th in 56:27 running in with Paul Carter 219th. Claire Jones and Anne Berry ran together finishing 244th and 245th with 58:29. Michael Kearney was 274th with 1:03:20. There were 309 finishers in this popular race.
Simon Denye clocked 20:00 in this week’s parkrun in Lytham Hall, recording an M40 age graded performance of 69.83%. Helen Lawrenson ran 20:46 for W45 78.01% and a new personal best time. Finlay McCalman recorded 26:49 for M50 55.87%; Kim McGuire 28:12 with W55 65.96%; Peter Cooke 30:32 for M55 51.20%; Clive Berry 31:18 with M50 47.12% and Debbie Bell 34:36 for W40 45.13%. In the Bushy parkrun, the original venue in Twickenham and a big run with 1123 runners featuring Olympic marathoner Mara Yamauchi extreme parkrun tourists David Taylor produced the 7th fastest time of the day with 18:14 for 70.93%, with Steven Gore 20:00 for M35 65.92%. Megan Gore ran 36:18 for JW10 47:02 with Vicky Gore providing parental support. At the Preston parkrun Robert Brown ran 24:50 for M55 64.03% while Dave Young put 27:37 on the clock with M65 63.13%. At Fell Foot near Newby Bridge James Mulvany ran 18:36 for M35 72.85%