It was nice to see out in this race some of the people who took part in the first ever running of this race, including Ian Holmes, Ted Mason and Sarah Charlesworth herself.  

Because of the relay on Sunday, just two Barlickers took part who finished as follows:

28 David Pease 51:40
57 Andrew Smith 59:40

This is probably the best race on Pendle and many would say better then the full tour.  

We had two runners out with Dave Mirfield coming home in second place, not all that far behind the race winner and a really good performance by Mark Horrocks saw him come home in sixth place.

2 David Mirfield 2:21:42
6 Mark Horrocks 2:47:39

He's back and still the best.  Jimmy Craig takes the honours in this race, beating Tom Cornthwaite into second place.  

1 Jimmy Craig 33:12

Every year, we start this race with a lot of optimism as to what we can achieve, but we knew that we were up against a strong Calder Valley team and it would have been a big ask for a small club such as ours to realistically take on the might of Calder Valley who are stuffed with good runners.  Having said that, on the day, anything can happen.

On the first leg, as expected, Calder Valley went out in front, followed by Rossendale and we were in third place,  But Rossendale went wrong and initially Matt Watson followed them, but he then realised that they were going the wrong way and called them back, before turning himself to pick up the correct route.  Tom had been trailing at this point and luckily the two met up just where Matt had gone astray.  However, the error by Rossendale put us into second place which we held to the end of the leg. Jimmy Craig and Craig Shearer went off determined to catch the leading team and put in a good time and some say it was a club record for the second leg.  It was Robert Cranham & Andy Berry who had to make the climb up to Black Shaw Edge and whilst Andy looked strong at the finish, Robert was obviously feeling effects of his recent marathon.  Ben Whitehead and Andy Collins then took up the baton and worked well together pushing each other on before handing over to Luke Butler and Nathan Smedley.  We were now settling into third place and this pair were running in the middle of nowhere, in that they could not see the team they were chasing nor the team who were following.  They pushed on to keep the chasing team well behind them, so as to give the last leg runners a chance to keep third place and a podium finish.  As it happened, they handed over to to Gary Shaw and David Mirfield with over a 7 minute lead over chasing club Wharfedale.  By that stage, we, in turn, were over 7 minutes behind Rossendale, so they were impossible to catch, so it was just a case of maintaining a good pace and ensuring a podium position.

It was heartening to take a podium finish. It was a great reward for all the effort put in by everyone who took part today and to Ben Whitehead for his team and pairing selection.  

3 Men 6:25:11

7 Ladies 9:16:19