Hello Green Army
Not a lot in the inbox this week, so a quick mention to the fell and road counter’s coming up this weekend. Saturday see’s Felsby go to Llantysillio Fell Race, 11am start, 6.2 miles of grass, mud and probably lots of hills. Sunday will see us roadies head to Arley Hall for the Cheshire 10k, 9.30am start, which I am told is on a very fast course. It’s also mother’s day, happy mother’s day to all you mums out there.
Also whilst we are talking about Fell and road races, don’t forget Helsby V’s Felsby takes place again soon, email me Fitzpatrick_chris@hotmail.com if you want to take part. Basically we get as many to run the last borders league race on Weds 26th April in Wrexham, and then the following Weds we race again at the Dinas Bran Fell race near Llangollen. Just nominate yourself as a Fell or road runner, turn up and I will sort the rest out.
Park run seen runners out (and falling over) in Runcorn, Newbury, Warrington, Delamere, Workington, Widnes and Croxteth. Full consolidated results below
A message from Jackie
A bit belated because I left for a week’s remote hut to hutting in deepest Norway early the morning after out presentation evening.
Here’s a summary of who won what. Thanks to all who made the evening and compiled the statistics. It was great too getting all the community groups that helped in the Four Villages together at the start of the evening to personally give out their donation cheques too. I’ll put the video on the 4V website sometime soon. Congratulations to all category winners and to everyone who turned up to run in all our club counters last season, may it inspire you all to run a record number of counters this season too!
| Roads Championship | |
| Men’s Champion | Colin Thompson |
| Men’s Runner Up | Neil Finegan |
| Men’s Senior Winner | Chris Fitzpatrick |
| Men’s V40 Winner | Adam Gordon |
| Men’s V45 Winner | Gary O’Connor |
| Men’s V50 Winner | Dave Feakes |
| Men’s V55 Winner | Colin Bishop |
| Ladies Champion | Joanne Lacking |
| Ladies Runner Up | Tanya Downes |
| Ladies Senior Winner | Rachel Holden |
| Fells Championship | |
| Men’s Champion | Jim O’Hara |
| Men’s Runner Up | Ben Fletcher |
| Men’s Senior Winner | Chris Baynham-Hughes |
| Men’s V40 Winner | Phil Roberts |
| Men’s V50 Winner | Tim Palmer |
| Ladies Winner | Laura Baynham-Hughes |
| Ladies Runner Up | Sue Buck |
| Ladies V50 Winner | Rachel Arnold |
| Cross Country Championship | |
| Men’s 1st Place | Colin Bishop |
| Men’s 2nd Place | Neil Finegan |
| Men’s 3rd Place | Gareth Boyd |
| Ladies 1st Place | Suzanne Fletcher |
| Ladies 2nd Place | Rachel Arnold |
| Ladies 3rd Place | Christina Roach |
| Club Champions | |
| Neil Finegan | |
| Laura Baynham-Hughes | |
| Mini Fells | |
| Mens Winner | Neil Finegan |
| Ladies Winner | Suzanne Fletcher |
| Trail Series | |
| Mens Winner | Colin Thompson |
| Ladies Winner | Debbie Read |
| Runners Runner | |
| Jackie Keasley | |
| Most Improved Runner | |
| Mens Winner | Adam Gordon |
| Ladies Winner | Alison Halsall |
| Greatest Comeback | |
| Gareth Boyd | |
The Border Leagues wards will be made after the tow final races are completed. Note we were able to give the club championship awards out because with two races to go Neil & Laura were uncatchable! Even more amazing!
Nesta says – Just wanted to let you know I raised £198 on Friday night!!! Really chuffed x All for her Leukaemia London Marathon fund raising. Good luck to all in London.
Plus thanks for my Runners Runner votes this year, makes another one chuffed!
Over to the single race report of the week and it sounded like a cracker, Geoff Collins do tell us more…
Race Report Forest of Dean Trails Half Marathon – 19 March 2017
Richard Hankins and I headed down to Gloucestershire for the Forest of Dean Trail Half Marathon. This proved to be a really cracking good value race. It certainly exceeded my expectations in the search for a different half marathon experience, attracted by the good race reviews. Richard’s expectations were exceeded too, more about that later!
For those that don’t know the area, The Forest of Dean is 42 square miles of ancient woodland that has an industrial past. It’s also quite undulating. It forms a triangular plateau bounded by the river Wye to the west and North West, and the River Severn to the South. The nearest large town is Monmouth on the other side of the River Wye.
The race is run by the local rotary club costing just £23 to enter. It starts near the impressive building called the Speech House. Now a posh hotel, it was once the HQ for the area hosting the Court of Speech. A sort of local parliament which managed the forest, game and mineral resources. There is an abundance of wildlife in the forest including wild boar, deer and birdlife. But the race safety notices didn’t include the boar his time!
Richard & I together with his friend Giles who kindly put us up, did the race with his running partner friend Claire and Colleague Jana. We were very good moderated ourselves in the Dog and Muffler PH the previous evening, carb (over?) loading on the sumptuous food.
However Claire clearly didn’t seem quite so well prepared. A late night out with lots to drink complaining she was totally hung over! I seriously wondered if she would start the race let alone be able to finish it! But finish it she did in just over 2 hours!
The race was started by a local athlete and Paralympic medallist Andy Lewis who got gold in the first-Paralympic Triathlon event at the 2016 Paralympics.
The weather was fortunately dry but a bit windy but the course was quite sheltered. The first mile of this race is on the road before you enter the forest. The trails lead toward a steep downhill slope. After that apart from two marshalled road crossings the course is entirely on really good trail surfaces. With long sweeping curves up or down and few tight bends, this was a much cleaner and dryer race than some recent road races! Road shoes would be absolutely fine for this course. In short this was a well organised and very friendly race we really enjoyed, with a nice medal and the proceeds go to charity.
The early stages of this race were quite easy and quick with mainly downhills until mile 5. Between miles 5 to 8 it’s mainly uphill, 8 to 10 is downhill and finally 10 to 12 uphill before levelling at 13 miles. In total I reckon a good 800 feet of climb! That last climb really finished me off!
Results (2,254 finishers).
1st male finisher Chris McMillian 1h 14m 39s
1st lady finisher Katherine Matthews 1h 24m 36s
97th Richard Hankins 1h 30m 56s
691th Geoff Collins 1hr 52m 19s.
Star performer on the day was Richard finishing in the top 100! A fantastic achievement for what is quite a challenging half marathon course, when the first finisher’s time was 1hr 14m. Richard was only 2 mins slower than his Village Bakery time!
The Rotary Club organise another trail half in September if anyone is interested see www.forestofdean-halfmarathon.co.uk
Well done chaps
That’s it for this week, good luck in all your up and coming races
Bye for now
Fitzy
