The Gravy Pud is a category BS fell race of 5 miles/1001ft, from the village of Tintwistle, on the edge of the Peak District.
It was very cold and wet at the start of this race. Almost all of it was on good, runnable tracks (albeit very muddy in places) with no visibility problems and the more exposed area was well marshalled.
The route heads up on to the moors above the village, initially via a farm track leading to the local high point of Lees Hill before descending through the trees of Swallows Wood, and along the top edge of Arnfield Reservoir, to re-join the farm track back to the finish.
The winner was Tom Saville of Dark Peak Fell Runners in a time of 35 minutes 59 seconds.
Richard Treitl finished 142nd in 1:01:08s.
There were 155 finishers.
5 Ian Livesey 55:33
60 Lee EDWARDS 32:05
16 Lorna HARGREAVES 24:49
At last, the results have been published for this event and although Barlick are only in the third division, our A team beat all teams in the league with four of our runners finishing in the top twenty. This result keep the A team firmly at the top of Division Three.
The B team finished 21st overall and whilst it is difficult to know exactly where they are in the league as Mid Lancs do not seem to be in a hurry to update their league tables, there is a good chance that they will be leading division four.
It was nice to see a full ladies team out and a first glance is that they finished 14th overall team and that they finished third in their division. Hopefully, this will keep them in top place, but we will have to wait for the compilers from Mid Lancs to confirm this.
Finally, with the increased number of member taking part, we now have a male vets team and they finished 14th overall.
94 Jen Hird 39:26
Ron Hill MBE was special guest at the Barlick Fell Runners 2nd annual presentation dinner at Ghyll Golf Club to reward the performances of the runners and his old friend Harry Smith for his services to athletics in Barnoldswick.
It has been yet another successful year, with excellent individual and team performances for the club. All the award winners are listed below:
Men's Fell Champion - Andy Berry
Men's Fell V40 Champion - Des Walkden
Women's Fell Champion - Rachel Lowther
Men's Road Champion - Richard Starkie
Women's Road Champion - Sarah Tipler
Men's Parkrun Champion - Lucas Payne
Women's Parkrun Champion- Emma Bailey
Men's Cross Country Champion - Nick Treitl
Women's Cross Country Champion - Sarah Tipler
Club Person of the Year - Andy Berry
Most Improved Male - Andrew Driver
Most Improved Female - Jen Hird
Biggest Improvement Parkrun Male - James stead
Biggest improvement Parkrun Female -Jenna Boothman
Performance of the Year- Sarah Tipler
Shaun Chew is starting to earn a reputation and some prize money to go with it. At his latest event Shaun won the event out right and a £500 first prize with a dominant performance in the final.
Matt Lalor won this race with another sub 33 performance. His winning time this week was 32:51.
This was a tale of two races. Although part of the Mid Lancs Cross Country League, this race was also a British Athletics Cross Challenge Race and as such, attracted some of the top athletes in the Country with the promise that the top runners would be selected for the European Cross Country Challenge in Bulgaria. Competition amongst the elite athletes at the front of the race was fierce, as was the speed in both the men's and womens' races and was awesome to watch. Then followed those athletes that we are used to seeing in local events and who we normally regard as being pretty good and today demonstrated the gap between those runners and those at International level.
The men's race was won by Callum Hawkins of Kilbarchan AAC in a time of 29:26. The Barlickers finished as follows:
140 James Craig 33:39
145 Chris Singleton 33:50
147 Nick Treitl 34:01
154 Marc Hartley 34:12
177 Ian Livesey 35:10
215 Lucas Payne 36:43
220 Luke Maude 36:53
317 Andrew Chew 40:01
329 Derek Walkden 40:31
366 Lee Edwards 41:50
396 Dave Halliday 43:12
496 James Stead 51:56
The ladies's race was very similar to the men's. The speed at the front was impressive and those women looked like they could hold their own in the average men's race.
The winning lady was Gemma Steel of Charnwood AC in a time of 26:58. The Barlick team finished as follows:
85 Sarah Tipler 32:06
148 Rachel Lowther 38:34
176 Emma Bailey 42:27
With Emma making up the team, the ladies have maybe once more secured the maximum points at this event.
Rob Affleck of Preston Harriers took the race in 32:47. Stephen Chew finished 4th with a time of 33:27.
4 Chris SMEDLEY 20:23
87 Lee EDWARDS 31:17
98 Chloe BOOTHMAN 35:04 New PB
99 John BOOTHMAN 35:05
Instead of the usual pub run, there will be instead an off road pre-Christmas social run from Higher Stone Gappe, the home of Graham & Pat Wadsworth. The run will be led out by Sam Wadsworth and afterwards, there will be meat & potato pie, chile, a few bowls of chips and draft ale courtesy of the Bridgehouse Brewery. To mitigate the cost, there will be a charge of £5 per head and £2 for juniors.
To get some idea of numbers, it would be helpful if you could email Graham Wadsworth (details on contacts page) or ring or text 07976 794749.
The start time for the run is 7:00 pm and will last about an hour.
Detailed directions are below.
The main aims of the club are to increase the participation of running in Barnoldswick and to keep organised running as accessible as possible.