Coronation Trail Race

Race report by Gareth:

Yet another terrific turnout of 17 Lostockers took part in last night’s second instalment of the midweek champs, the Coronation Trail Race.

A fairly recent addition to the race calendar (in it’s 3rd year) replacing the Jubilee Road Race series, this is a testing out & back 6 mile trail race starting & finishing near the bowling green, with 600 feet of elevation.

After the usual chaos of trying to find somewhere to park & then try & find somewhere to wee (it was behind a tree for my Philip, Tony & myself) we got under way at the 7:15 under glorious blue skies & warm sunshine.

The vast majority of the elevation is in the first half of the race & it offers some stunning views over Rivington. We headed up from the start with Anglezarke Res on our left & Yarrow on our right & on towards Lead Mines Clough, up and down a bit more, run round a random cone 3 miles in cheered on by Bolton Mountain Rescue & back to the way we came to the finish.

The best thing about out and back courses is the chance to cheer on fellow Lostockers, the first of which & continuing her magnificent form was Janet, who looked bright & breezy in putting in a storming performance to win her age cat & finish 6th woman in a super competitive field, this race is on the CLGP so always a top quality of runner! Dave continues his fine form with another stellar performance, followed by fellow Manchester marathon superstar Phil who was definitely was all the better for having an absolutely fantastic sports massage on Monday :). Fell captain Mark S showed his strength & guile by trying to sneak up on Phil & even shussed us on the out & back as he didn’t want to alert Phil to his proximity lol. Tony backed up his recent parkrun PB with another solid performance & road captain Jo showed she’s no slouch on her least favourite surface & reeling in Rach H on the downhill section (but Rachel did have the faster chip time by a few seconds).

Chris & Heather ran strong races to finish within a few seconds of each other closely followed by Hazel, Paul & myself who decided to run it together for a variety of reasons, hot on our heels in a new course PB despite an exhausting few weeks was Rachel S & the 4 of us narrowly managed to avoid a heard of stampeding cattle (slight exaggeration) which had been behaving themselves until a mountain biker came up behind them & startled them into a black & white whirlind of fury.

Mary, who was running in a very odd red & black vest excelled herself as usual & romped to an age category victory & next home was Lynda who despite not feeling it beforehand was another Lostocker to break her course record! Big shout outs to Mark C after another long bike ride to the start & back home again & to Gill who rocked up in her camper van from hols as she didn’t want to miss out!

Well done everyone!