Helsby weekly round-up 7th – 13th Nov 2016

Hello all
Before the news please see some reminders from Paul Foster and Jackie below:
L&D Cross Country
The next Liverpool and district XC on Sat 26th November Sefton Park Liverpool at 2pm is a pre entry event.
All names have to be submitted a week on Wednesday 16th November so if anybody would like to run please send me your name and date of birth to:
mooeyf@hotmail.com
So please don’t forget to email me with your details..
To all new runners this is still a free event for every Helsby runners as long as you are first claim and wear your Helsby vest..
Thanks Paul..
A week Weds its the start of our Autumn talk season. Please come along and support these events.  They follow on from our club training runs on a Wednesday in our Helsby Community Sports Club bar, starting as soon as we have recovered, bought drinks and had a bite to eat, at about 8:30. The club will provide food  to help recovery and sustain us (chip butty season is upon us with the cold nights!). To help with the food order please let Lesley know by the day before if you are coming along davidfeakes1234@btinternet.com
Wed 23rd Nov Chris Baynham-Hughes on his amazing achievement of completing this summer’s Ultra Trail De Mont Blanc.   Plus our club place London Marathon Draw.

Warrington Way 40

Congratulations to all our members who tackled the Warrington Way Ultra at the weekend, some details below and a report from Ian Rutherford (who found the time to run a hard track session the next day – machine!!)
“Run forty miles around the outskirts of Warrington in November they said.  It’d be fun they said.
Do you know what?  It was.
This event gets a bit of stick it seems and for sure it’s not Chamonix but apart from a couple of busy roads and the occasional logistics depot 😉 it’s a surprisingly rural course encompassing Trans Pennine Way, numerous canal & nature reserve trails, country lanes and maybe a few too many muddy farmers fields.  It’s starts and ends in lovely Lymm town centre and it was really good to see such large numbers supporting the race.
The weather forecast for the duration of the event was improving as the week beforehand progressed but it was all to obvious that a significant deluge of rain had already fell in the week and continued to do so right up until kick off on this damp, dark and lets be honest miserable early Saturday morning.
With waterproofs on we assembled on the start line and at 7.30am prompt the hooter went to signify the off.  Wiggo led the Greenarmy cry and off we went.  My own strategy was to go easy and just try and find a decent group to hang with; especially one with good nav knowledge.  I couldn’t have executed this plan any better as the runners started to thin out with the very differing paces I latched on to a small group of three others at around the 5 mile mark.  Running at around 8’30 mile pace this was an ideal group.  Chatting with the guys it became clear these were a group of Lymm Runners and one of them Steve Davis (no not that one) had ran the course many many times as he had actually co-helped design the course route alongside the Race Director (which was nice).  So I knew as long as I could hold on I wouldn’t get lost which was my primary concern.  A real fleeting visit to the first checkpoint, not even time to take off my waterproof jacket and on we went. Approx 1h’27 for the first ten miles; everything feeling good and feet only slightly damp, spirits were high!  Next 10 miles in to checkpoint 2 was 1h’29 so fairly consistent.  A slightly longer stop allowing a quick refreshment and on the move again, this time heading towards an area I know well around Hatton where checkpoint 3 was. Our group of four had become a group of 2 as the others had dropped off the pace, the human sat-nav Steve and myself.  We hovered up Dean Allison at around 24 miles from North Wales Road Runners and this was to be a three that finished together.
1h’39 for this next 10-mile split, so it was clear we were tiring and whilst you could never describe this course as remotely hilly (just under 1000ft for the whole 40 miles); the little elevation there was, was mainly in this stage.  A brief stop again; and nice to see my young lad here with some drink changes and we were off again.  This final stage was the most difficult terrain wise; predominantly across farmland that was waterlogged and churned up under very heavy and tired legs.  1’h43 for this leg.  We were well cheered home in Lymm town centre and the three of us joined hands as we ran across the finish line together in joint 14th position and a total time of 6h’18 mins.
I was mightily pleased with this run and thought I’d ran it as well as I could have hoped.  I would have definitely struggled with navigation if needed and feel good that over a forty-mile race not one person overtook me after the start and had managed to gradually climb up the places the entire way.
Of course I wasn’t the only green vest on the grid; 4 others all took on the challenge.
Jim Jones 61st in 7h’37
Andy Robinson 65th in 7h’41
Dave Madders & Steve Wiggins coming home together in 9h’10 in joint 97th.
Dave let me know afterwards that although he enjoyed it said it was much harder than the L2M 50; this gives a good idea on how tough the conditions were on the day.
Organisation of this event was faultless and Lymm Runners should be rightly proud of this event.”

Arley 10k

One of the fastest 10k’s in the racing calendar saw 5 green vests running around the beautiful Arley Hall on Saturday. Emma Barnes has sent in a report for this race, Thank Em and congrats on the PB!
“I ran the Arley 10k on Saturday.
A lovely rural route around the lanes of Antrobus.
The weather was grim!!
The start was delayed by 10 minutes!
No green army shouts I’m afraid, as the race got underway. (Sorry Chris)!
I set off well and managed to keep a reasonable pace around the picturesque route. There was not much support out on course……not surprising really.
By the time I had finished I looked like I had completed a cross country!!! My poor new road shoes!
Finish time of 56:42 – PB!!”
A few other green vests were also in the results, well done to all who took part. Not sure if anyone else secured a PB but please let me know if you did and I’ll update the blog.

Full results here http://www.cheshire10k.com/cheshire-10k-results-12th-november-2016/

Sunday League XC – Beacon Park

We could not have asked for a nicer day to run with great views from Beacon Hill in Skelmersdale, a light wind and no rain. Still muddy as hell though, but that’s the way we like it! The course encompasses two laps of undulating terrain and plenty of mud, a few slips and falls along the way saw some battle scars!
The ladies had a great day at the office with some excellent individual performances which saw them 4^th overall in the table. Laura B-H led the way and showed her strength on the hills to secure a superb top ten finish. Jenny Illidge was in her element with all the puddles to jump in but still found the time to put in a great performance to secure a top 30 finish and 6 of our ladies all featured in the top 50. Well done, fantastic running all!
The men’s team had their best run for quite some time, Colin Bishop showing his class once again to storm around for 13^th place but man of the match has to go to Neil Finegan who still isn’t 100% fit through injury but came through the field like a train to take 14^th place, just a few seconds behind the mighty Bish! 3 runners featured in the top 20 and with many other fantastic individual performances the men secured 4^th team overall. Probably our best position in the league for quite some time. Let’s keep it up chaps!
Thank you to Mario and Jane Bishop for their support on the day, Jane also provided some delicious cakes!
Mens Results
13^th      Colin Bishop
14^th      Neil Finegan
16^th      Colin Thompson
41^st      Chris Fitzpatrick
62^nd    Chris Baynham Hughes
77^nd    Gareth Boyd
89^th      Phil Roberts
146^th    Steve Riley
151^st    Mike Williams
189^th    Paul Foster
Ladies Results
8^th        Laura Baynham Hughes
24^th      Jenny Illidge
31^st      Janet Robertson
42^nd      Rachel Arnold
44^th      Debbie Read
49^th      Susan Fletcher
76^th      Susan Buck

Lots more photos of the day are available here courtesy of Andy Smith
https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/49120421@N08/sets/72157676556886406/
Full results can be found on www.stevesaunders.co.uk
The next Sunday League is at Walton Hall Park on Sunday 4^th December but please note we have a clash with a borders league on this day. Which ever race you choose it will be great to see lots of support at both so let’s get a big turn out folks!

Athens Marathon

Tanya Downes travelled to Athens to take part in the original marathon, a report will be on the way soon for this but in the mean time be sure to congratulate Tanya on an excellent run and we look forward to reading all about it.

parkrun

A bit quiet at the parkruns, it must have been all those pesky races over the weekend! We still had a small number showing at Widnes & Delamere and a new PB for Geoff Collins at Chester! Well done all.
http://www.parkrun.com/results/consolidatedclub/?clubNum=1721
That’s all this week. If have have missed anything please let me know. Remember our email address is helsby-race-reports@outlook.com if you want to send us any race reports to include in the blog.
Cheers
Col T