Welcome to the Home of Radcliffe Athletic Club

Starting off this week’s racing strong, Sheila Jones bagged first place in her age category (FV70) on Tuesday at the Rochdale 10k in a time of 50:46. This road race set off from Springfield Park, up Roch Valley Way, through Bamford, down past Queens Park and back through Heywood to the finish line in the park.

On Saturday the first of the club’s festival outings for the weekend was the Heptonstall Festival Fell Race in Hebden. This 9.5k mixed terrain race included cobbles, grassy fields, muddy slopes, rocky bridleway, open moorland and 1640ft of climb. Runners were rewarded for their hard graft with a free pint and a music festival at the finish line. Keeping up his spate of impressive results on the fells this year, Christopher Mihalyi was again the first to the finish line for the club in 1:10:04, followed by Mark Garner (1:12:22), Mark Taylor (1:15:45), Karen Doherty (1:28:39) and Stephen Crowe (1:40:18).

Next up, ten members, undeterred by the rain, attended the Blackrod Scarecrow Festival 10k. This multi-terrain race packed all the hills into the brutal last few kilometers as runners ran through the charming village of Blackrod. Results included Steven Fawcett (43:16), Jack Connor (50:50), Kath Biddle (52:33) (1^st FV50), Lucie Tighe (53:18) (1^st FV35), Chemane Thomas (53:28), Elaine Bailey (1:05:14), David Schofield (1:05:47), Tracy Wroe (1:15:24), Bev Quinton (1:25:14) and Andy Wheeler (1:25:45).

Further afield, over in the city center of Newcastle, Emma Horner took on the AJ Bell Great North 10k, finishing in 50:20.

This busy Sunday also saw four at the Lyme Park ‘Half Marathon’ – although runners actually clocked over 22k on this challenging trail run. Starting and finishing on the grounds of National Trust Lyme Park in Cheshire, the views more than made up for the extra distance. Ian Swan completed the distance in 2:09:09 followed by Donna Cartwright (2:13:55), Andrew O’Donnell (2:37:17) and Karen Wells (3:07:09).