It was cheers and (maybe) tears as the Red Rose Cross Country League drew to a close with the staging of the infamous/horrendous Marl Pits race in Rossendale on Saturday, writes Jen Forkin.

The mud is next level on this annual race with a 45-degree angle hill to navigate and there is no coming away from this one with a splash on your socks.

It was mud worthy of Glastonbury festival and Tony Fulop probably wasn’t the only runner to end up on all fours.

Still, as the results show, mud never puts Burndeners off, and it was a hardy 10 who took the race on, but even super resilient Tony reported that it was the hardest race.

n Results

Marl Pits Ladies: Anne Ferguson – 3rd V60 - 29mins 02secs, Lyndsay Darbyshire - 29:56, Jane Forrest - 31:35 and Francesca Caine - 31:55.

Marl Pits Men: Paul Duke – 40:27, Pete Hopley – 41:53, Gareth Lowe – 43:37, Mark Turner – 1:00:44, Neil Counsell – 1:00:47, Tony Fulop – 1:26:35.

Captain Paul Duke was incredibly happy and proud as the league closes and he shares the overall positions.

To qualify, runners had to complete trhee out of the four races and the top three will be invited to a presentation ceremony to collect their trophies. Over the four races, Burnden turned out a record number of runners with 25 members competing in at least one race – many for the first time.

Overall positions: Steve Nolan – 1st V60; Anne Ferguson – 2nd V60; Lyndsay Darbyshire – 3rd V55

Other positions: Jane Forrest – 4th V60; Paul Duke – 6th V45; Gareth Lowe – 8th V40; Mark Turner – 9th V60; Anthony Fulop – 10th V60; Francesca Caine – 45th in the Open category

It was up Blackburn Road for three Burndeners this week as they competed in the Blackburn 10K at Ewood Park.

Starting and finishing inside the stadium, the course takes runners onto closed roads for a fast 10K route that takes in Blackburn town centre before looping back towards Ewood. Many run the race for charity, and it attracts up to 3000 racers.

Verity Harrison ran a super race and finished in 48:02 – a personal best to add to her already great 10K times. Emma Walker and Gillian Morris finished the course in a very respectable 54:30.

Sarah Watton and Jonny Sangster swapped freezing temperatures and potential snowflakes for an average of 19-degree sunshine and seaside as they raced the Lanzarote 10K.

Sarah raced superbly – finishing as ninth overall female in 44:46 and Jonny was the 11th overall runner in an incredible 37:24.

The race was part of the Lanzarote International Running Challenge – a running festival organised by Club La Santa – now in its 33rd year - that attracts runners from all over Europe. ‘Tis the season to be jolly’ and at parkruns across the country it was happiness on a lot of Saturdays.

Parkrun super-tourists, Simon Marland and Sue Blackman, who not only found a parkrun at Crichton and finished in 23:12 and 33:37 respectively, but also recently squeezed in a training run amid the blistering heat of Qatar while they were over to catch the England match.

And there was more good news for Sue as her name was drawn out for the Burnden position at the London Marathon.

No doubt, she will be running many more parkruns and long runs with Simon from now until April and we look forward to seeing which locations they visit!

Closer to home, Suleman Badat achieved seventh position at Stretford with a lightning-fast 17:58 – just 13 seconds behind the first finisher and Mark Jackson followed shortly after in 19:47.

Heaton Park welcomed the Dunleavy power couple – Cheryl and Andy – who finished in 38:04 and 20:58 respectively. Adrian Ashburn completed the trio of members as he finished in 23:34.

Two members finished in Bolton’s top 10 this week as Chris Worthington was home in seventh position with 22:37 and Stephen Horsman was 8th in 22:46. First lady this week for Burnden and third female was Gayle Gerrard in 26:40.

Other results: Martin Whitehead – 24:23, Kathryn Berry – 28:23, Linda O’Byrne – 29:20, Philip Glassbrook – 30:15, Paul Johnson – 33:49, Sarah Brown – 34:04, Jackie Cairns – 36:33, Ian Mann – 37:18.

Liz Hopley was the sole Pendle parkrunner for Burnden this week – finishing in 34:40 – while Ryan Moore flew the flag at Widnes – crossing in 22:51. Sutton Manor saw Chris Greenall cross the line in 26:31.