Race report by Road Captain Gareth:
Saturday saw a fantastic turnout out of 17 Lostockers taking part in the 5th race of the road/trail champs….the extremely muddy Worden Parkrun 🙂
With 132 taking part, we made up a fair percentage of participants!
This event is a relatively new addition to the Parkrun family with the first event taking place in October last year. I thought it would be perfect to do as it’s new, local, & flat….hadn’t considered the mud! I naiviely assumed it would be the same route as the Worden Park 10K….that would be far to easy & obvious!
Its a lovely 2 lap course with a really fast start on good tarmac paths for the best part of 1/2 a mile..then the fun starts.. straight into the muddy fields, through woods, round a ridiculously muddy football pitch or two & then back on to the tarmac paths (where your legs turn to lead!) with a good 1K or so into the finish..then repeat! There seemed to random cones everywhere & it was hard to work it whether to run around, between them or whatever 🤪.
From my middle of the pack position I got to see the race for Lostock pride unfold, Hazel went off like a rocket into an early lead with Andy & Chris continuing their parkrun rivalry (moslty friendly lol) hot on her heels, not too far behind were Louise showing she’s not lost any speed during marathon training, Rachel continuing her strong recent form across all formats & Brian who ran an absolute blinder despite having done a full days work on the farm before before running 🤣.
Matt, Johanna (running within herself before the Mersey Tunnell 10K on Sunday), Tony & myself were in a small group getting further behind our leading lights until Matt showed us a clean pair of heels by leaving us for dead on the muddy stretches of the course.
Next time I saw the leaders on the second lap Andy had forged ahead of Hazel and was looking really strong & that was the way they finished across the line. Big shout out to Lynda & Katie taking part in their first race for team green, both ran really strongly & showed they are definitely made of the right stuff.
Sound performances as ever from Mike (definitely not his favourite course lol) Beverley,Karen, Sheila & Gillian on what was a great mornings running from everyone in pretty perfect conditions in a really friendly & well run event. Would love to have a go at it after a dry month!
For the record:
Andy Laycock 23:59 11/132
Hazel Hatfield 24:16 14/132 (2nd female)
Chris Baker 24:31 17/132
Louise Read 24:49 19/132 (3rd female)
Brian Halton 24:56 22/132
Rachel Susan Hancock 25:01 23/132 (4the female)
Matt Carney 25:43 29/132
Gareth Pratt 26:06 30/132
Johanna McManus 26:31 33/132 (6th female)
Tony Maxwell 27:17 39/132
Mike Berry 27:39 44/132
Beverley Atherton-mckenna 28:17 48/132 (7th female)
Katie Edern 30:00 63/132
Lynda Hardman 30:43 69/132
Sheila Garewal 30:57 71/132
Gillian Caldwell 31:32 72/132
Karen Taylor 31:32 73/132
