A good turnout for this race, which is the third in the club championship series.  The Barlickers were led home by Ben Whitehead.  He prepared for this race by yesterday drinking large amounts of beer at the football festival at Cowling.  He resigned himself to just having a trot out today in view of his over indulgence yesterday.  He started off very steadily and to his surprise, he felt OK.  He started picking off runners and on the way back, he found himself in a group of three runners, who were behind the first three in the race.  It was nip and tuck between these three runners, but on the steep hill down the road from the fell, Ben felt that he had worked so hard to keep up with them, that he was not going to be outdone by anyone at such a late stage of the race.  In the end, as they turned the corner and along the lane. it became a sprint finish with Ben just managing to keep his nose in front.  The reward was 4th place in the race and first M40.

In the women's race Victoria Peel prepared for her race by doing 70 miles last weekend and leaving herself and her legs in a bit of a sorry state.  She visited her physio on Thursday and afterwards felt even worse.  However, in this race, she came alive and put in a great performance to finish second woman in the race.  Our women as a group all ran extremely and dominated this race, taking second place overall, the 1st W40 and 5 places out of the top ten. 

Men
4 Ben Whitehead 53:34 (1st M40)
22 Carl Nevison 59:17 (2nd M50)
23 David Pease 59:44
32 Shane Muller 1:03:26
35 Andrew Smith 1:04:20 (1st M60)

Women
2 Victoria Peel 1:00:04
4 Emma Law 1:06:05 (1st W40)
5 Laura Craig 1:06:18
7 Jacqueline Collins 1:07:02
9 Emma Taylor 1:08:18
11 Hayley Whitehead 1:10:16
14 Paula Cullen 1:12:19
28 Nicola Muller 1:24:42

Full Results

In view of the injury which he incurred in the London Marathon, John has given running a miss, except for a couple of steady jogs and at the same time, he pulled out of the Pennine Barrier and the Leeds Marathon as they were totally unachievable without totally wrecking his leg.  However, he decided to have a ride up to Edinburgh to have a go at the marathon. 

Being Scotland, rain was forecast and rain it did.  A lot before the start and it continued until John was half way round, when it did brighten up.    However, as soon as he finished, it was back to rain again.  As for the race itself, John set off steadily away with a view to seeing how his leg held up. stopping every five miles to stretch it, as a precaution.  He lack of running caused him a stamina shortage half way round, but nevertheless, he got round in one piece and he was very pleased to finish unscathed.  It was not a rapid run, but there again, it was not too bad.

2822 John Boothman 3:51:15