On Saturday 11 members of Lostock Athletics Club travelled to Barley to compete in the infamous Tour of Pendle fell race, writes Samantha Sale.

The Tour’ is the classic late season long race that takes a ‘figure-of-eight’ course around the remote areas of Pendle Hill covering 16.8 miles and just short of 5000ft of ascent.

After a first visit to the trig, there’s a long fast descent of the length of Pendle to the ‘Nick of Pendle’ and then Churn Clough. A steep climb up Spence Moor is followed by the notorious ‘Geronimo’ descent into Ogden Valley. After regaining the plateau and retracing your footsteps towards the ‘Nick’, you are faced with three major climbs, each one steeper and longer than the last, before a second pass of the Trig and a long run off back to Barley.

The sunshine and the heat took everyone by surprise as runners dressed for November at Pendle but what did remain the same were the condition underfoot. When there was the opportunity to run, competitors had to tackle energy sapping bogs!

Josie Greenhalgh ran a great race and finished first Lostocker and third WV50 in 03hrs 27mins followed closely by Samantha Sale who finished 4th WV45 in a respectable 03:30. Next over the line was Tom Grundy in 03:53.

Abigail Sunter was next to cross the line in 04:37 followed by brother Jordan Sunter in 04:49 and mum Michele Sunter one second later.

Great efforts from both Donna Kelsall and Mike Ernill who finished in 04:49 and 05:10 respectively, followed by Melissa Anglesea who ran a fantastic first Tour of Pendle in 05:11.

On Sunday six Lostockers tackled the streets of Bury in the Bury 10K, the penultimate race on Lostocks road/trail calendar. A poor weather forecast led to some dreading the 9:30 start but thankfully the rain stayed away and they even got some lovely sunshine and zero wind which made for good racing conditions for late November.

It was a super friendly and very well organised event, lots of respect to all the extremely supportive race marshals for giving up their Sunday morning lie in to hang around in the cold for a few hours!

Runners got underway bang on time at 9:30 and were greeted with a fast (ish) flat/downhill first mile. This definitely lulled competitors into a false sense of security as miles two and three were a long steady uphill climb, nothing crazy in terms of elevation just a bit relentless.

But what goes up must come down , the turn around point came about three miles in which meant miles four and five were pleasantly downhill and included a long stretch on a lovely tarmac footpath at the side of the park to mix it up a bit. Bit of a sting in the tail with a short uphill in mile 6 just as we were approaching the town centre and a nice 1/4 mile sprint finish with tremendous crowd support .

As ever some cracking performances by team green with Gareth Pratt crossing the line first for Lostock in 45:28 followed by Paul Lacey in 47:54.

Next to cross the line was Mike Berry in 50:33, Tony Maxwell in 51:11, Rachel Stevens 55:23 and Sheila Garewal in 59:33

Further afield Johanna McManus made the trip to Conwy to take part in the Conwy half marathon.

Voted in the top five most scenic half marathons in the UK, it is now in its 14th year is a classic race on the calendar and has a start and finish near the quayside in front of the 700+ year old Conwy Castle with over 800ft of ascent.

The route runs along the road adjacent to the Conwy River as it proceeds towards Deganwy and the West Shore Llandudno, from there it goes along church Walks towards Llandudno Pier, then around the Great Orme taking in views of the Isle of Anglesey, Puffin Island and the surrounding North Wales coastline, then back to Conwy and the finish line.

McManus ran a great race and finished in a fantastic 01:47.