Race report by Gareth:
Great pics courtesy of Sheila & Rachel Susan Hancock, results provided by Johanna, now it’s time for the race report..
Another great turnout of 14 Lostockers made the journey up the M6 to the lovely town of Garstang for the magnificently titled Garstang Gallop over the seldom raced distance of 7 miles. Such a good turnout on a very crowded race day with the Wigan HM, 5K & 2up duathlon also going ahead today.
This is a little belter of a race and we’ll definitely be back next year. Only a small affair with 127 taking part but super friendly organisation & the most cheerful and supportive marshals I’ve seen outside the Lostock 6.
Starting in the picturesque town centre with a race briefing on a traffic island of sorts outside the Royal Oak pub we were soon underway with a quick downhill start followed by a shortish steep climb followed by a nice downhill section which sets the tone nicely for the race because it’s pretty much all like that! Definitely undulating but not excessively so & extremely runnable and enjoyable mostly on pretty country lanes in a lovely rural setting.
Greg got off to his customary fast start closely followed by Jo, Hazel and myself. We ran most of the first 3 miles together, 4 abreast at times like a team of Kenyans in a big city marathon (albeit old, crap, slow Kenyans but you get the picture).
Hazel messaged me the day before asking me to pace her which means a. don’t have a beer, b. definitely don’t have multiple beers and c. I’d better be on my game lol. I figured an average pace target of 7:35 min/mile seemed doable and we made sure not to dip below 8 min/mile pace on the hilliest sections and eventually pulled away a bit from Jo & Greg. Predictably Hazel out kicked me on the run for home to be first Lostocker back by a couple of seconds and we averaged 7:39 pace so nearly on plan.
Jo finished very strongly with a great last mile followed by Greg. Lots more cracking performances today with Rach H being as strong as ever, Tony Maxwell running a great race despite turning up in trail shoes for a road race and not having run for ages and Brian showing his strength and consistency ran his usual sound race & finished very impressively. Martin didn’t enjoy it (I know, I asked him 🤣) but he still showed that track work and strength training brings their own reward with another solid performance.
Lynda continued to show that marathon training definitely agrees with her with another great effort and the always smiling Katie put in another great shift and enjoyed herself. Mark Checkley backed up yesterday’s fell race with a great last mile and even had time for selfies on the motorway bridge section 🤣. Stephen managed to find a sprint finish when he saw Sheila taking his photo in his first run since his last race (there’s definitely a pattern developing here!) and Gillian ran as strongly and consistently as ever to tick the “long race” box off this year’s club champs. It was particularly pleasing to see Karen put her recent injury niggles behind her with a comfortable looking race to continue her prep for London.
Well done team green 💚🖤. Next stop on the race calendar is the Bolton Community 10K on 13th April…
