Welcome to the latest Helsby RC blog! We’ve got 5 excellent race reports for you this week so grab a tea or coffee and enjoy the read! The publication cadence of the blog is driven by how often YOU submit material. So remember – as long as the topic is club related, it is fair game for the round up blog. We ALWAYS want to hear from YOU. Please send your material to helsbyracereports@gmail.com
Borders League Race 1, Runcorn
What a success! So Sunday just gone, we hosted the opening fixture of this season’s Borders League at Norton Priory, Runcorn. A ton of work went into organising this and the course was well received by the bumper turnout of 440 runners. It felt like just reward for all the hard work put into the organising that Helsby Men finished the day sitting proudly top of the Division 1 standings with Helsby Women also having an excellent day to sit in 2nd position in their league.
Helsby Men haven’t been Borders League champions since the late 1990’s…………..it’d be a tall task to emulate that success, but our current top of the table position (albeit after only 1 round) definitely gives us cause for optimism…………..
Team Standings here: Borders League 2024-25 Race 1 29th September 2024 Norton Priory – approx distance: 7.9K
Race director (and Club Chairman) Chris Fitzpatrick talks us through the action:
440 runners, 439 positive comments! I’d say that was a successful race if you ask me
What goes into hosting a Borders League race? A hell of a lot of work which started back in July, finding a venue that can cope with 400 plus runners, 200 plus cars, has enough toilets and for the road runners out there, has plenty of tarmac to slap their Vapourflys against. It’s extremely hard for clubs to put these races on and the cost keeps rising year after year so I’m so pleased we chose Norton Priory and the initial feedback we have had has been great.
Once we chose our course, we got to work on gaining permission from Norton Priory firstly and with their approval moved onto Halton Borough Council, who have to authorise you to run around the paths of Norton Priory and Phoenix Park. Nobody answers emails quickly so from a race directors point of view it’s quite frustrating as you want it to all be agreed quickly so you can move onto the next stage. We are really lucky as we have some great friends out there who can help with the event plan, risk assessment, as this gets assessed by the race adjudicator and the council. Once we have that done, you apply for your race licence through England Athletics and we officially have an event.
I never sleep very well the night before a big event so I was up marking some of the course for 7am and was shortly joined by Susie and Phil. Thanks so much for being there nice and early and calming my nerves a little. 400 bottle of water, stakes, tape, a million signs, runners parking, runners toilets, caution runners, the list goes on, were transported to the finish area and we opened up the gates to the runners that started to arrive in their numbers and looking down Tudor Road it was like a scene from Field of Dreams (only the older members will know that reference 
). There was that many runners turning up I think mainly down to the good weather that we took the decision to delay the start by 15 minutes. If we knew we were expecting a huge turn out then we could have maybe considered putting on a few more toilets but everyone made it to the start line in time.
The race itself was an amazing race to watch, especially as I was on lead bike for a lap and nearly got caught by the leader, apparently the winner is a 2hr11 marathoner!! Pheonix Parkrun is one of my favourites, but for some reason it only attracts 60-70 runners on most weeks so to see 440 runners slapping the tarmac around a course I run around a lot was a great sight to see.
A huge thank you to everyone involved, I’ve said it above but to put 40 runners out, finishing 1st and 2nd on the day whoop whoop and also around 25-30 helpers and marshals fills my heart with pride of what a great running club we have.
If anyone is ever interested in organising one of our races, bossing people about and much more then let us know as we would love to get more people involved and we shall even pay for the courses that are available out there to help you. Let’s keep on doing what we are doing as we are seeing more and more people join our club and everyone seems to have a big smile on their faces, especially me
See you all soon.
Fitzy
June Whitehead (Club Vice Chairwomen) also had a few words:
A special mention in this weeks blog to first time border runners Marion and Cassie plus the Ms Helsby RC superstar and long standing member Rachael who returned back to the start line after many years running on the fells.
We are so proud of you all pushing out of your comfort and giving borders a go – that’s where the magic happens! Well done and look forward to seeing you at the next one.
June
Northern 6 & 4 Stage Road Relays, Blackpool
On Saturday 21st September, Helsby fielded 3 teams (2 men’s, 1 women’s) in the Northern Road Relays up in Stanley Park, Blackpool. Ian Mayhew describes the day:
Really enjoyed the trip out to Blackpool. There’s something special about these team events on these long trips away. A year previously, we hadn’t been able to generate enough interest to field any teams at all, so the fact that we trekked up in such numbers shows how far the club has come in terms of levels of participation.
The Northern Relays serve as a qualification event for the National Road Relays in Birmingham, with the top 25 teams from both the men’s and the women’s side qualifying to represent the North at the national level. This was always likely to prove a huge ask competing against some of the biggest clubs in the region but all teams performed creditably with the Men’s A and B Teams finishing 44th and 96th respectively (out of 119 teams in total) while the Women’s team came in 54th (out of 72).
From my own perspective, I ran 2nd leg for the Men’s A’s and so was waiting around in the holding pen on the inside of the track (along with 118 other 2nd leg men) waiting for our lead off runners to arrive. The fact that we were up against some of the absolute best athletes in the country was brought home to me when Fitzy (who was 2nd leg runner for the B’s) gave me a nudge and said ‘have you seen who’s over there?’ Standing not even 5 yards away from us, waiting for his own lead off runner to arrive while clad in the colours of his home club Bingley AC, was GB Olympic gold medallist Jonathan Brownlee!
The lead off runner for Bingley wasn’t as quick over the opening 5.6k leg as Danny Lightfoot was for us and so I had the unique experience of being pursued by Brownlee (although admittedly not for long, he soon swept past me!). We were talking afterwards about how one of the great things about running compared to many other sports is the close proximity you can get to some of the biggest names in the sport…………..I played local league football for years without ever sharing the same pitch as a World Cup winner. I played for Helsby Tennis Club for years and never saw a Wimbledon champion across the net. But you can go to these races as a runner and potentially toe the same start line or pound the same bit of tarmac as an athlete who’s won the greatest prize in our sport.
All in all, a really great day out. Hopefully we can field just as many, if not more teams this time next year and push for that top 25 spot that would take us to the Nationals. Individual split times over the 5.6k course are in the photos:
Wirral Multi Terrain Series – Races 3 & 4
We’ve also had the Wirral Multi-Terrain series over the past 4 weeks. Phil Wood talks us through the Harrison Drive event from Tuesday 17th September:
“The evening didn’t start that well as Carol, Vanessa, Debbie and myself ground to a halt in traffic on the M53 and we were left wondering if even make the start of the 3rd run in the Wirral multi terrain series at Harrison drive. We finally got to the promenade at 18:25 and a quick dash for numbers and onward to the beach followed. There was a great turnout from Helsby with 9 of us making the start on the beach under the setting sun.
The course was a single lap 4.2 mile course and as we gathered at the start the brief was drowned out by a paraglider taking off behind us, (presumably to film all of the 360 keen runners). Once we got going we were running for a mile along the beach encountering a range of firm rippled sand, water crossings and shale. After a mile we were turned around onto the promenade then into the undulating dunes and after a bit of single track back onto the beach to start the slog to the finish.
The Liverpool dock cranes in the distance never seemed to get any closer but finally the ice cream at the end was in sight. I opted to take a few finish photos instead of indulging though, and got to witness Joey’s sprint finish, which was just like the beach run in Rocky 3.
We got a great team photo at the end. Well done everyone. Onward to next week at Arrowe Park.
And then Vanessa Griffiths describes the action from the Arrowe Park event:
“There were just four of us (Debbie, Ian, Phil, and me) who headed down to Arrowe Park for the final race of the series. There should have been five but unfortunately Carol was injured. The first big challenge was getting there on time because of the perpetually crawling traffic on the M53, but we did marginally better than the week before when we nearly missed the start of the race at Harrison Drive. The second big challenge (only for me, it seems) was deciding which running shoes to wear and, after a lot of dithering, opting for my road shoes – wrong choice! – as the field was very soggy and the wood was very muddy following the recent heavy rain. Although the conditions weren’t as good as in previous years, we all enjoyed the race and I think I’m safe in saying we would recommend the whole race series to anyone who hasn’t done it but is thinking of having a go next year. Debbie won her age group prize for the series and here are final race results:”
Warrington Running Festival
Last, but certainly not least, Joey Kelly updates us on events at the Warrington Running Festival:
“HRC were represented in both the 10k and Half Marathon distances at Warrington on 22nd September. The race starts/finishes in the town centre taking in Victoria Park in the first few miles and then splitting the two distances over the Cantilever bridge – where the 10k circles back and stays pretty flat. The Half Marathon course was pretty undulating other one long hill in the middle which after 3 miles of climbing gave a big pay off of a steep decline to a flat-ish 5k finish. It’s a very well attended race and has a festival/big race atmosphere with crowds lining the town centre and a sprint finish through the iconic golden gates.
Results split by distance:
10k: Sian Carrick (48:48), Kelly Plester (56:41), Sharon Case (01:01:11), Cassie Fleming (01:07:30), Laura Kelly (01:07:30)
Half marathon: Alan Lea (01:32:09), Alison Williams (02:03:28), Phil Wood (01:33:50), Chris Green (01:53:07), Joseph Kelly (01:53:13)
The race is organised by the RunThrough machine and gives everything we’ve come to expect from them with free medals, photos, isotonic beers, a village of stalls, and even a free personalised race video! Definitely worth signing up next year – especially those who have completed couch to 5k and looking for some big atmosphere 10k’s”
