It is a popular period for trail races, with the historic Parbold Hill race last week featuring 382 runners with many Merseyside athletes making their way to their nearest visible upland. There were 233 runners in the Winlatter Moonrunner at 18:00 on Saturday north of Keswick. The nearby Standish Hall Trail Race takes place this weekend with 223 entries already.
Two of Wesham’s current top runners tackled the Valentines 10k in Lancaster from the George and dragon pub on the Quayside. Tom Bamber finished 2nd in 34:14 and first M40 in a cracking run and a good position. Dan Bolton was 4th in 35:39, another good run. Ian Nichols Hogg came in 28th in 43:03 and Peter Rooney was 74th and 4th M65 in 55:30. Mary Lois Cortes finished 127th in 1:17:29.
Rob Wallace ran the Great North West Half Marathon on Sunday along the Blackpool Promenade finishing 122nd in 1:38:34 with a chip time 16 seconds faster. Stuart Mulrooney came in with 1:42:14 in 156th place for 14th M40 and Jack Doyle 168th in 1:44:44. John Naylor notched up another endurance distance in 1:46:51 for 185th place, 19th M40, and Alistair Morris was 537th and 24th M60 in 2:28:36 with a chip time of 2:27:29. There were 606 runners in this race.
Martin Bates ran the Bolton 5k in Leverhulme Park and finished 241st and 14th M65 in 29:28. There were 287 runners with the winning times 15:29 (male) and 16:58 (female) in this good quality race with 58 finishers inside the 20-minute barrier.
There were 22 Wesham members at 12 venues for a parkrun on Saturday morning for their weekly 5km time trial. In Platt Fields at the South Manchester parkrun Tracey Hulme ran 25:13 and there were four members in Avenham Park in Preston. Nigel Shepherd clocked 21:47, Vicky Gore 25:00, Andy Moore 28:57, and James Danson 29:28. Emma Brook was at the Riverside parkrun near home in Chester-Le-Street to record 27:50 on the grassland meadows and at Ellesmere Port Ryan Azzopardi returned 27:50. Alice Deacon was in North Wales for the Penrhyn parkrun and she ran 31:54. Three members were in Lytham Hall where David Taylor ran 18:23 and John Naylor 23:54. Ian Nichols Hogg clocked 24:08. On the hilly Lancaster parkrun in Williamson Park Martin Bates recorded 35:32 while in Blackpool’s Stanley Park Dan Bolton returned the second fastest time in 17:10 with Jordan Doddemeade 9th with 20:04. Carl Groome and Sue Rigby ran the Black Combe parkrun on a private site north of Barrow. Carl ran the fastest time of 21:02 and Sue clocked 36:47. There were three Wesham runners in the Fleetwood Promenade event, with Rob Wallace running 22:31, Dave Young 30:29 and Alex Rowe 43:27. Alona Versinina was in Ashbourne on the Recreation Ground to record 29:46 and Mike and Helen Eyre ran the University of Northampton parkrun in 23:19 and 30:27 respectively.