All too often, relay races start with much optimism and particularly with two man legs, end up with disappointment. This year was the first year that we had a complete ladies team in the race and we were hoping for great things. Sadly this came to an end all too quickly. Kelly Whiteside and Angela Donlan set off on the first leg and they were still in the park when Kelly keeled over and was laid on the ground, obviously in great pain. She had to be carried back to her car by Stephen Chew and Gary Shaw. It turned out that she had ruptured her achilles tendon and her leg will be in a cast for for a little while. Everyone feels sorry for Kelly and wish her a speedy recovery. Angela Donlan continued with her leg and everyone ran their subsequent legs for the experience, but the failure of both runners to complete leg one meant that the ladies team was automatically disqualified from the race.
In the meantime, the A team got off to a good start and it soon boiled down to a battle with Wharfedale. However, Tom Corrigan and Matt Lalor managed to build up a lead and they handed over in first place with a 35 second lead over Wharfedale.
Chris Singleton and Julian Hood set off on leg two and increased this lead to around a minute before handing over to third leg runners Shaun & Stephen Chew. However, in this leg, they were caught by the chasing Wharfedale pair who managed to pull away and establish a lead of around one minute.
Jimmy Craig and Nick Treitl took over on leg four against what was probably the best pairing in the Wharfedale team – Sam Watson & Ted Mason, who increased the lead even further. On the fifth leg, Gary Shaw and Luke Maude clawed back a bit of the deficit and going into the final leg, Wharfedale had a lead of around two and a half minutes. Marc Hartley and Ian Liversedge started to eat into this lead and when they left the canal, they had reduced it to around one minute, fifty seconds. They continued to whittle this lead down and when Wharfedale turned off the road into the finish at the rugby club, the Barlick pair could be seen coming under the bridge after them.
It had been an exciting tussle throughout the day between Wharfedale & Barlick and at the end of nearly six hoursa racing , only 47 seconds separated them, but it was Wharfedale who took the honours and they ran out worthy winners. It was almost 12 minutes before the third place team of Calder Valley came home.
As Wellington once said, “It was a damn close thing”. As it happened, a 2 minute penalty was imposed on Barlick for the leg four runners taking the wrong route, even though it made little difference to the final result. Even with this penalty, the overall time was still under six hours and few teams have ever achieved this. It was disappointing to come second, but that takes nothing away from the whole of the A team who put up such a great battle against a very much in form Wharfedale team.
The B team also put in some good performances and finished 12th overall. The C Team finished 29th.
1 Wharfedale Harriers 5:56:43
2 Barlick Fell Runners 5:57:30 (before imposition of a 2 minute penalty.
3 Calder Valley 6:08:12
12 Barlick B Team
28 Barlick C Team