LOSTOCK AC quartet Paul Speed, Josie Greenhalgh, Jocelyn Chadderton and Mary White blew away the Christmas cobwebs by heading to Rawtenstall for the Boxing Day festive fun at the Whinberry Naze Dash fell race.

Times and performance were unimportant for the four miles and 750 feet of climbing as Speed and Greenhalgh fully entered into the festive spirit, running in fancy dress as a traffic cone and as a 1920s flapper girl respectively.

Sally McCoy made her return to competitive running after a 2017 blighted by injury at the iconic Auld Lang Syne fell race in Haworth on New Year's Eve.

Again entering in fancy dress, as Shaun the Sheep, McCoy posted a creditable time of 69mins 38secs, although all the fancy dress antics failed to distract double Olympic triathlon champion Alistair Brownlee from claiming his fifth Auld Lang Syne victory.

Lostock AC runners took full advantage of the last Saturday running in 2017 of Haigh Hall parkrun and the New Year's Day race.

On Saturday, December 30 Andy Laycock posted a parkrun personal best of 23:25, followed by Matt Withers (28:53), Joanna Parncutt (31:36) and Karen Taylor (34:49).

Withers and Parncutt raced again on New Year's Day with times of 25:19 and 32:23 respectively.

Paul O'Brien eased himself back into 5k racing with a time of 28:05, while Jon Tomlinson made a welcome return in 35:04.