Helsby weekly round-up 28th Nov -4th Dec 2016

Hello all
A busy weekend of racing but before we get to the news please some reminders from Jackie below for some events and races coming up soon
Wednesday 7^th Dec – Club talk by our own Gareth Boyd  entitled Where’s the bike Son? 200 miles on the Trans_Pennine Trail!  On his completion of this Summer’s mammoth UK coast to coast Ultra.  In the Helsby Community Sports Club bar, following on from our training run, at 8:30pm, with a free supper. So we order the right number please let Lesley & Dave know you are coming davidfeakes1234@btinternet.com

Helsby RC Xmas night out – Saturday 10th December, meeting at Helter Skelter at 7.30pm, Christmas jumpers a must!!
Sat 10^th December – 3^rd Liverpool & District XC Club Counter – Beacon Park
Sat 10^th December – Helsby Community Sports Club Xmas Party with a meal & band.

10^th & 11^th December – Four Villages Residents Letter Drop – We have leaflets to give out along the route advising of the road closures. Laura has a team for this but would always welcome more help.  Laura@baynham-Hughes.com. Entries are building up slower than normal this year and we could do with advertising our race as much as possible. We have some fliers to give out which are on the front desk at the Sports Club or available from Laura. If you can distribute them at races you go to, work, sport, leisure centres, clubs, community centres, shops etc it would all help reach our limit.
Sun 18^th December – 4^th Sunday League XC Club Counter – Arrow Park
Wed 21^st Dec – Xmas Handicap followed by a homemade soup & mince pie supper.  Meet at the club at 6:30 pm (Xmas dress optional!). We will have a warm up, then gather at the start near Tesco for our 3.3 mile dash to Godscroft Lane and back with staggered starts. Please bring a wrapped Xmas present to the value of £5 for the secret Santa prize giving in the bar afterwards.  For the supper Lesley & Dave will email soon asking for a number of volunteers to bring big pans of soup to warm us all up. I’m currently compiling the handicaps and plan to use your latest Border League Results, if you’ve not run one then firstly why (!?!?) & secondly please let me have your latest 5K/10K times. jackiekeasley@btinternet.com

Xmas Day –  Delamere Park Run 9 am (TBC) , to work up an appetite for your turkey dinner! Xmas costumes welcome!

Boxing Day – Goshawk Run 12:00 pm, an informal 3 mile run from the Goshawk pub in Mouldsworth. Just turn up and run. This run was instituted by John Claire, our club chair for many years race. Sadly John passed away this year but I am sure folks will turn up as always  to run  in his memory. It’s also the Race the Walls in Chester, 10:30am, but you probably need to pre-enter https://wcac.niftyentries.com/Essar-Round-The-Walls
Sat 31st Dec – Four Villages Course Reccie.  It has been suggested we meet at the club at 10:30 am for a run around the Four Villages course. There is the option of cutting it short in a number of places to about half the distance. Splitting into paced groups of 1.30, 1.45 & 2hr times approx. Colin will co-ordinate and if you would like to volunteer to pace a group please let him know col808@hotmail.com
Sat 7^th Jan – Cheshire Cross Country Championships at Birchwood. Show case XC of the year for runners & spectators!  A chance to see and run with Cheshire’s best and to try and qualify for a Cheshire vest and the Nationals.   But please don’t be put off; it’s a great team day out for all levels of runners. You must be born in Cheshire or have resided here for last 9 months. Pre-entry so if you wish to run please let Paul Foster know before Xmas,   mooeyf@hotmail.com
Sat 14^th Jan – Four Villages Set up Morning, very important so  please come along and help set up this year’s race. Many hands make light work and it’s great fun too seeing what lies behind organising such a large race. More info from Laura in the New Year.
Sat 15^th Jan – Essar Four Villages Half Marathon 10:30am.. Whether you run or help on the day let’s hope it’s a brilliant race day, proudly organised by race director Laura & the whole of Helsby Running Club. If you can marshal or help on the day and have not already said please let Dave Feakes know davidfeakes1234@btinternet.com or Laura.   Laura@baynham-Hughes.com
New Thursday Night Speed Training at Runcorn – Colin & Roy are now running speed sessions from Tudor Road Runcorn, 6:30pm, WA7 1SX each Thursday. Rotating through each month, the sessions will include 4 x 1 mile repeats, 5 mile run (options are fartleks, tempo runs etc), 6 x 1k repeats, pyramid session, 5 mile run. For more information contact Roy Gaskill & Colin on facebook or col808@hotmail.com .
Hope to see you out and about running on the run up to Xmas and into 2017. A Happy Xmas and an enjoyable New Year to you all.
Jackie
Your chair
Now to the news, thank you very much for all the reports this week it makes our job so much easier. Remember all future reports should be sent to the usual email address which is helsby-race-reports@outlook.com
First up is an excellent report from our BL Co-ordinator Fitzy…

Borders League Race No. 3 – Birkenhead Park

Report by Chris Fitzpatrick
“This Sunday seen 21 of us take a trip over to Birkenhead for Race 3 in the Borders League Season. A lot of clashes with the Cross Country and Fell Counters meant a lower than normal turn out but there was still enough of us to make sure we didn’t get any penalty points. 

A big well done to Alison Halsall and Christina Roach for a win in their respective age categories! Great stuff ladies 🙂
Full results here:
http://www.bordersleague.org.uk/results/

NWSLXC – Otterspool

Report by Chris Murray
“Having missed out on the previous two XC fixtures I was determined to get to Otterspool for the 11am start of the 3rd Sunday league race come Hell or high water/Santa dash. With 2 other club meets on the same day there was still a modest turn out of 9 Helsby faces. The race itself was 3 laps of the field and woods with a few “hills” and mud thrown in for good measure; a varied and fun course. The only negative that could be said about the route was that there were a few bottle neck sections where you could get held up but a bit of friendly shoving and elbowing seen you through without to much lost time. All in all a great race and a great performance by the Green Army contingent.”
Helsby Men
13 Colin Bishop
75 Chris Murray
91 Gareth Boyd
96 Darren O’Connor
126 Stephen Riley
151 John Whitehead
167 Paul Foster
Helsby Ladies
37 Suzanne Fletcher
38 Rachel Arnold
Men’s team 11th overall
Ladies team 15^th overall

Cardington Cracker

Report by Sue Buck
“What a cracking race it was too. A beautiful, winter’s day saw 5 of the Fellsby contingent make their way south down to the small village of Cardington in Shropshire. The race is run over 4 hills of varying gradients, from the steep, nearly hands and knees climb up the Lawley, to the last gentle ascent over the Wilderness. I had done this race in 2013 and remembered really enjoying it. What I hadn’t remembered was that it is actually quite tough, covering 9 miles and 2600ft of ascent. 
The race starts in a field, with a sprint to a gate, and then meanders over to the Lawley. Having climbed the Lawley, we were treated to a frosty ridge run, with fantastic views over the Shropshire countryside, followed by a fast, grassy descent.
I found the ascent up Caer Caradoc particularly tricky this time as it was steep, relentless and slippery in places. It was worthwhile though as at the top, we were once again treated to a ridge run, with fantastic views, before the steep descent to the stream. 
A bit of flat running took us to the start of the 3rd ascent, starting on the side Helmeth Hill, past the Gaerstone Rock and then finishing with the checkpoint on Willstone Hill. At this point, I took the opportunity to take in where I’d been as you could see the whole course.
The descent off Willstone Hill was very steep and very slippery. Someone mentioned that in races gone by, people had used bin liners to slide down some of these hills and to be honest, a bin liner descent would have suited me better!! 
The last sting in the tail is the gentle ascent over the Wilderness, before the dropping down over the fields to the finish. I had a good race, knocking 4 minutes off my previous time. 
Great running everyone, but a particular shout out to Tim, who’d knocked 9 minutes off his previous time in 2014.”
Helsby results:
Pos   Time Name
19  1:26:58 O’HARA, Jim
48  1:33:33 FLETCHER, Ben
97    1:42:49 ROBERTS, Phillip
100  1:43:11 PALMER, Tim
231  2:19:43 BUCK, Sue
251 finishers, last finisher 2:51:44.
Full results: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnx0ZWxmb3JkYXRobGV0aWNjbHVifGd4OjZhYWY3MzIyZmQ5MjU4YTI
Thanks to Andy for standing out in the cold taking pictures!
https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/49120421@N08/sets/72157677455470635/

Stockport 10

Report by Debbie Read
“Sunday 4th December – so many races, so much choice! Feeling somewhat guilty for not doing a club race I entered one of my favourite races the Stockport 10 – a hilly (I like hills), 10 mile (I like 10 miles) mainly Tarmac (not my favourite) with a mile or so of trail (Yey)
Standing on the start line in perfect running conditions David and I wished each other well and we set off around the athletic track alongside 1500 runners, David leaving me in his wake. After leaving the track, we ran through the park for a mile or so then hit the pavements, roads, housing estates, farm tracks and trails of Stockport and after a final long hill at mile 8-9 re-entered the park and did a lap of the track to finish.
A well organised race with lots of marshals – would recommend it.
p.s. In the clubhouse after the race I was talking to a Stockport runner next to me – I was wearing my Green Army Hoody and he told he’s entered the 4 villages. We compared our race times and he told me he did 50:03 ( looking at the results he was only the winner!) 5 minute miles, could we be on for a new course record?”
468^th Debbie Read 1.21.52 (3^rd in age cat)
Ed: Debbie is too modest to mention she got 3rd in her age group. Well done Debbie, great result in such a large field of runners! Not sure what happened to Dave, his result comes up as DNF, is that Drunk and never finished? 😉

parkrun

Please see the consolidated results from the Saturday parkruns. Well done to all who took part.
http://www.parkrun.com/results/consolidatedclub/?clubNum=1721
That’s all this week, thanks again for all the fab reports. Anything missing please let me know.
Cheers
Col T