JOHN Knowles, the evergreen M40, collected the age category win in the Pennington Flash 5-Mile Trail Race when he produced a barnstorming 27mins 24secs for sixth overall – the same position as last year but nearly two minutes quicker.

He led home the Blue Vests that featured other age-category winners in Simon Dally (M45), Ken Fowler (M60) and Rachel Bailey (FJ).

Under overcast skies and cool conditions, Paul Mills joined Bailey as Bolton’s only remaining 100-per-cent-ers in this year’s Central Lancashire Grand Prix series.

Simon Walker produced a confident run, while fellow junior Cameron Donnelly made his debut as part of Bolton’s squad of 14 – the smallest for five years in the CLGP.

After eight rounds, Bolton still lead the A, B and Vets teams' tables, with second position in the women’s standings. However, the low turnout, perhaps due to the bank holiday weekend, has made a significant dent in the buffers to the chasing packs of Burnden and Leigh.

BUH&AC times: John Knowles 27.24, Simon Dally 29.07, Simon Walker 30.27, Paul Mills 32.27, Ken Fowler 33.07, Cameron Donnelly 34.35, Dave Flitcroft 34.50, Stefan Nan 34.57, Cathy Flitcroft 36.22, Rachel Bailey 37.57, Alex Donnelly 40.46, John Grimshaw 41.12, David Morrison 41.37, Gerard Tucker 52.12.

Lone Bolton athlete, Taiwo Taiwo made the long journey to compete in her first EA National Championships in Bedford last weekend.

Although usually a 200m specialist, coach Les Hall encouraged her to compete over two distances.

He was not to be disappointed, and in a very difficult 100m heat, Taiwo ran a superb race and finished fourth in a time of 12.56.

Usually, this would mean a nervous wait to see if it was enough to qualify for the next round but because of the race quality, Taiwo was sixth quickest overall.

In the semi-final, she once again finished fourth, repeating her 12.56 and qualifying for the final.

All of the best athletes from around the country lined up for the final and Taiwo ran a fantastic race in 12.57, showing amazing consistency.

She finished eighth, which moved her up to 27th in the national rankings, having broken and equalled the club record twice in the space of six hours.

After racing three times at maximum effort on the Saturday, it was always going to be tough to run in Sunday’s 200m. However, in her semi-final she was quick out of the blocks and clocked a fantastic 25.46 to finish second, only beaten by the current UK number one, Alicia Regis.

This was once again a club record which completed an amazing club record double over the weekend.

Lining up in lane six for the final, another fantastic race saw her finish fifth in 25.52, which moved her up to 15th in the UK rankings.

It's been a long season for Taiwo and she will ease down with a couple of low-key events before taking a well-deserved rest.