Helsby weekly round-up 31st August – 4th September 2015

Helsby weekly round-up 31st August – 4th September 2015

Hello everyone
A very busy week of racing for the green army so lots to report! Thank you for all the race reports, if there are any more then please send to helsby-race-reports@outlook.com and I can always update the blog at a later date.
Firstly some reminders of races and events coming up soon:

  • Don’t forget it’s multi-terrain race #2 tonight. Ladies are doing well in 3rd place,  men 17th, 5 men and 3 ladies to count. A great set of 5-6 mile fairly local races at £1 each so a bargain! 7pm start at Royden Park http://www.stevesaunders.co.uk/mterrain.htm
  • Mini Fell Counter – Saturday 19th September –  11am – St Johns Castle –  A 4.6 mile race starting in Lanarmon yn Ial with 865ft of climbing. A good introduction to fell running out near the Clwydian Hills with a lovely village pub at the end! Entries on the day and only a few pounds!
  • Road Counter – Sunday 20th September – 11am Sutton 6 – A local 10K race just up the road at Guilden Sutton. A pleasant flat course along mainly quite country lane. Entries online or by post and on day subject to 400 limit.   http://www.westcheshireac.co.uk/roadracing/sutton6/
  • A link to Tim Palmers comprehensive race calendar can be found here https://helsbyrunningclub.wordpress.com/2015-event-listing/
  • Xmas party – Friday 4th Decemeber. More details to follow from Fitzy but get it down in your diaries asap (or he will be very disappointed!)

parkrun
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Our weekly parkrun stats are below. Some good performances this week with a podium position for Janet and a new PB for Rachael! Well done all.
Delamere
45th      Janet ROBERTSON  00:23:47 (2nd lady)
47th      Geoff COLLINS         00:23:52
66th     Carol SHAW               00:24:50
Widnes
63rd     Rachael HOLDEN     00:26:25 (new PB!)
Multi-Terrain
The first of the muti-terrain races saw 12 helsby runners toeing the line in Thurstaston. A beautiful evening and perfect race conditions saw some excellent running from the Green Army. Congratulations to Max Wainwright who was first home for Helsby in 15th place overall and Jo Lacking who was first home for the ladies. The ladies are currently 3rd in the league and men are 17th. Nice to see some new faces on the night too, well done everyone.
Helsby results here:
15th      Max Wainwright      29:46
79th      Jim Jones                  33:47
84th     Jim Higgins               34:04
120th    Jamie Dowdall         35:14
174th    Geoff Collins             39:10
194th    Paul Foster                41:02
9th        Jo Lacking                 36:10
13th      Vanessa Griffiths      36:32
27th      Louise McEvely        38:14
91st       Donna Geer               47:51
92nd     Pam Hankinson        47:53
98th     Janet Shaw                 48:21
Full results can be found here http://www.stevesaunders.co.uk/mt/2015/mtrace1_15.pdf
Road
Halewood 5k
Ian Hamling was our sole Helsby representative at the HW5k this month and ran a stormer to break the 20 minute barrier for the first time. Well done! Ian is one of our newer members and has been training hard at the track each week which is starting to pay dividends in his race times. Quality training really does work so if you would like to get some speed into your training then join us at 6.30pm each Monday at Helsby High School.
Full results for the race can be found here https://sites.google.com/site/halewood5kresultsservice/
Trail
Brenig Trail
Ben Williams has kindly sent in a race report for the Brenig Trail race on Saturday. Over to you Ben…

Dave Wiggins and I took on the Brenig Trail race on Saturday – nine miles around Llyn Brenig reservoir on the Denbigh Moors.  The scenic course was mainly on stony or paved tracks, with a stretch of wet muddy footpath at the top end of the lake. Road shoes were the order of the day, and many people were cursing their way through the muddy stretch. The course was ‘undulating’ rather than hilly, but there was very little of it on the level apart from the heartbreaking last half mile along the dam where the finish never seemed to get any closer. The weather was fantastic, almost too hot at one point and I was grateful for a bit of shade when the trail disappeared into the forest.
The race was nice and low-key, very well organised by Denbigh Harriers and marshalled by local cadets. The turnout was boosted by Wilmslow, who I assume were using it as a club counter and who made up almost a third of the field. It deserves support and it would be good to see a few more of the Green Army there next year.
Special mention goes to Steve Wiggins who dropped (well, hobbled) in to support on his way back from the ROF, and bought the coffees as well.

Results at http://www.denbighharriers.com/downloads/Brenig_Results_2015.pdf
Montaine Trail 10k/HM (Delamere)
Sunday saw the Montaine Trail event which has proved popular with Helsby runners in the past (anything hilly and muddy seems to be a magnet for the green vest!) A tough course with a run up Old Pale is certainly not for the faint hearted but that didn’t deter the 4 runners from the Helsby contingent. Two reports have been sent in for this, thanks guys. First up is Darren:

Not really a big fan of the trails but thought I’d give this a go being so close to home. Tough route – very hilly and muddy in parts. Shoe came off going through a particularly boggy patch and going up old pale at the end was a killer! I would have said definitely not a pb course but Chris somehow managed to get one!
Well organised and enjoyable race. Really good training run for me but I’ll stick to the roads I think…..

And over to Neil Finegan for the next report…

In its second year of running, The Montane trail 26 events at Delamere on Sunday had a choice of 2 routes looping through the central part of the forest and familiar to those who have run the parkrun there.  A 10k and a half marathon choice,  both run on trails finishing together with a  final slog up the old pale – a 200 ft steep climb to take in the views before the downhill to the finish. 
The half route which I completed was a mixture of the main paths around the forest,  combined with some real “off road”  trails.  The amount of rain last week made this a tricky and mucky experience but thankfully the knee deep puddle towards the end cleaned my legs at least.   It was a tough route – only a 750ft climb in the course but the twists and turns made it difficult with the bad conditions under foot.  Every time you started to get a  rhythm and a bit of speed going you were diverted off again through the trees,  dodging the swamps,  tree roots and dog walkers. It was a beautiful September morning and the scenery made the race pass very quickly – but the popularity of the forest on a nice day with non runners added to the difficulty.  
It was a well organised event,  the kids trail event at the start (complete with off road Hill climbs) was particularly good.  A few more stewards and markers would have been appreciated in places but the race kept a nice small scale community atmosphere with 200 runners in the half and 148 in the 10k.  The winner of the half set a new course record of just under 1h 18m.  For Helsby Chris Murray knocked 5 minutes off his previous half marathon PB which is brilliant on a tough course like this.
There was 1 Helsby runner in the 10k and 3 in the half all finishing very well.

Helsby results below:
10k 
31st       Stephen Roach          00:51:55
Half Marathon
11th       Neil Finegan              01:29:28
24th       Darren O’Connor       01:36:02
32nd     Christopher Murray   01:40:13
Full results here http://www.trail26.com/events-results.html
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Fell
Cilcain
Tim Palmer has kindly sent in the following report for Cilcain, thanks Tim.

The Cilcain Mountain Race saw a good Helsby turn-out – well a good turnout from the Men Vet 50s with Jim Jones, Phil Gillard, Ian Landucci and me. Chris Hatton and Andy Robinson were there representing the more mature members and Ben Fletcher representing others. The race itself is up to top of Moel Famau and back via a slightly different route.
There is some excellent drone footage of the race – see: https://youtube/MEPXLN4ibDo – the drone did lead to some confusion with the Green Army; initial suggestions suggest the drone was…a swarm of bees, flies round the runners, a strimmer…
Unfortunately the results on the WFRA website have an Excel bug in them. From those and the info on the WFRA North Wales series, the following can be de-ciphered….

Helsby results:
31st         FLETCHER, BEN      39:45
45th        JONES, JIM               41:40
53th        GILLARD, PHIL        42:57
54th        PALMER, TIM           42:58
61st        LANDUCCI, IAN        43:55
75th        ROBINSON, ANDY   44:50 or 44:48
115th       HATTON,CHRIS       52:15
Shelf Moor
No reports for our 11th fell counter but I have found the results. Well done to Jimmy O’Hara on another strong run to take maximum points and Laura Baynham Hughes who was first lady home. Well done to everyone else who participated.
Helsby results below:
14th      Jim O’Hara                            00:50:34
38th      Ben Fletcher                         00:58:41
40th     Jim Jones                               00:59:17
54th      Paul Gilliard                          01:00:48
56th      Steve Riley                             01:01:26
71st       Laura Baynham-Hughes    01:06:29
83rd     Rachel Arnold                       01:10:38
85th      Paul Foster                            01:12:48
88th     Chris Hatton                          01:15:03
92nd     Jackie Keasley                       01:18:18
Full results here https://glossopdaleharriers.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/shelfmoor2015results1.pdf
And some photos can found here http://www.overyonderphotography.com/2015/09/06/shelf-moor-fell-race-2015-photos/
Ring O’ Fire
ring-o-fire-routeFinally a massive shout out to Gareth Boyd who completed the epic Ring O’ Fire race over the weekend. Ring O’ Fire is a 135 mile coastal ultra marathon circumnavigating the Isle of Anglesey over 3 days and is one of the toughest trail races in the UK. Well done from all at Helsby RC! Also commiserations to Ste Wiggins who had to pull out of the race due to injury, I’m sure he will be back to fight another day. We will be pestering Gareth and Ste for a full report when they have both recovered but in the meantime all results can be found here http://www.ringofire.co.uk/.
 
That’s all this week, please let me know if I have missed any races or if you have any more reports please send them over and I can update the blog.
Keep on running!
Cheers
Colin
 

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