BURNDEN’s Neil Critchley became a multi-Ironman as he completed his second outing in the gruelling event.

The endurance specialist not only repeated his 2012 success but managed to improve on his performance. He bettered his previous time of 15hrs 28mins 44secs by nearly an hour and a half, slicing time off each discipline.

He was out of the water after the 2.4-mile swim in Pennington Flash in 1:35:54 and took 7:18:29 to complete the 112-mile bike ride before a 4:40:55 marathon round Bolton’s roads to deliver an overall time of 14:05:51. His marathon time was an amazing 1hr 7mins faster than three years ago.

He was one of three club members who completed this year’s mega challenge. The first of them to finish was Colin Rigby, who was the club's fastest in all three disciplines.

Rigby followed up his 1:20:20 swim with 7:05:25 on the bike before running 3:48:08 for the marathon to finish in 12:39:07.

John Turner, who only decided to attempt the race a week earlier, turned in a magnificent performance to register 1:29:39 on the swim, 7:54:40 on the bike and a 4:39:36 run to complete in 14:30:02.

Away from the big event, Phil Eccleston, who completed the Ironman in 2014, continued his training schedule for the Snowdonia Marathon in October by coming third in the Windmill Half Marathon at Lytham in testing conditions. His time of 1:20:51 was just two and a half minutes behind the winner.

Clair Marland set a new personal best in the same race, completing the course in 2:05:33.

Carolyn Barker was second female runner home in the Pendle Family Running Festival 10k in a time of 55:24, while Matt Barker took on the half marathon distance and clocked 1:53:45.

Jackie Oakes travelled to Windermere to tackle a varied weekend of running and open water swimming. On Saturday she was seventh woman to finish the Fell Foot parkrun in 23:26, coming 31st overall and then a day later took on the 2.4k Sleekerswim challenge from Fell Foot along the River Leven at the south end of Windermere. She was fifth woman back on the two-loop out-and-back course in 52:06, finishing a fantastic 20th overall.