Men's Team - 2nd

Ladies Team - 3rd

There were two great team performances today.  For the men, Gary Shaw and Matt Lalor set off well and on their leg trailed just behind the Bingley A team, a position they maintained until the end, finishing in front of the Wharfedale team, who were third.  They then handed over to Julian Hood and Stephen Chew who had closed down the gap with Bingley by the time they got to the 'Murder Mile'.  At that stage, there was no sign of Wharfedale and Bingley B team had moved into 3rd place.  The runners disappeared out of sight as they went across the moors, but when they reappeared, approaching the Keighley Gate Road, they had opened up a huge gap on Bingley and they handed over a three minute lead to third leg team, Andy Berry and Lucas Payne.  They set off with much determination and maintained this lead to give a two minute lead to the final runners Shaun Chew & Sam Wadsworth.  In the course of this leg, Bingley regained the lead and went on to win the race with a 2 minute lead, which, after the excitement of our strong lead in the middle of the race, was a little disappointing, but on reflection, it was a tremendous achievement for the club, that after only one year in existence, it  could push a top club like Bingley so closely.

At the start of the race, there was also much excitement that we were able to field a ladies team and with so many of the team new to running, we were hoping that they would get round and finish in a reasonable position.  Well the ladies did the club proud.  Rachel Lowther and Linda Bostock took the first leg and handed over to Sarah Tipler and Helen Glover.  They ran a tremendous leg, pushing the ladies team into third place.  They handed over to Sarah Jarvis and Lucy Beresford who had a good run to hold on to this lead to hand over to final leg runners Emma Bailey and Helen Stead.  They ran their hearts out and Helen was absolutely exhausted at the end, but they had done it - they had held on to 3rd place.  This was an amazing performance from our girls and augurs well for development for our ladies group in the future.

The top places were:

Men

1 Bingley 'A' 3:23:11
2 Barlick 3:25:17
3 Bingley 'B' 3:37:28

Women

10 Wharfedale 4:18:14
11 Bingley 4:20:55
16 Barlick 5:00:27