It was a case of a one-two for Horwich men at the Two Lads race organised by the Harriers and another women’s course record.

Nick Leigh won ahead of club mate Luke Foley, while Martha Tibbot took 90 seconds off the previous women’s best time.

Leigh and Foley were nip and tuck all the way in the five-mile race on the moors above Horwich.

Foley, fresh from his win at the Leo Pollard memorial race the previous week, led through the cairned summit and down through Wilderswood at which point Leigh, using his experience over many years, including running for England at the Snowdon International race, took the lead and held it for the last half mile to win by seven seconds.

Tibbot was seventh overall out of 178 runners and had also been a winner at the Leo Pollard memorial race where she broke the women’s record by more than three minutes.

It has been a record-breaking year on the West Pennines as Sarah McCormack had also broken the long-standing Pike race record in April.

Toby Middleton was first male junior and completed a one-two-three finish for Horwich, and there were category wins for Julian Goudge, Janet Rashleigh and Tony Varley. Horwich men and Chorley women were the team prize winners.

It was a busy weekend for the juniors with the county schools’ championships results awaited.

At the Northern League meeting in Blackburn, Horwich finished just four points off taking second place and there were standout performances from several young athletes.

Emma Bradley was a discus winner and had a big personal-best time in the 800m, while Blythe Cordwell had two first places in the 100m and triple jump and Joe Beckett had three PBs in the 100m, 200m and long jump.

In the Clowbridge trail races in the moors above Rossendale, it was double success for the Yates brothers, with Harry taking first place for under-13 boys and Louis taking second for u9 boys in competitive fields.

In the Faroe Islands, Steve Thomasson, in the third leg of his grand tour of Europe this year, was pleasantly surprised to achieve a new personal best time of 1hr 42mins 20secs in the Torshavn half marathon, despite its undulating course. He was 15th finisher and fourth in his age category.

Sam Fairhurst followed up his recent Ian Hesketh Memorial duathlon second place with a first winning duathlon performance at the tough Slateman event in Llanberis, a very hilly course for the running and cycling legs.

Rob Jackson continued his impressive set of results, this time on the trails of the Edgworth Reservoir 10k, where he was sixth overall and won the M55 category.

In the Haigh Hall four-mile race, Chris Charnley was first of the Horwich runners followed by father-and-daughter pair, Lawrence and Heather Pinnell.

Paul Boardman took on Rochdale Harriers’ three-day event and in each of the three races he was first M60.

In the Norden road race, he finished 24th; the following day he showed very good recovery by finishing ninth in the six-mile multi-terrain race in Naden Valley before capping a nice set of results on Sunday with 30th in the Knowl Hill fell race. He was fourth overall - a credit to his all-round running ability.