Lostock athletes were out in force last week with five members visiting the Lake District for an 18k trail challenge.

On Saturday, Janet Rhodes, Sally McCoy, Beverly Atherton-McKenna, Heather Soden and Greg Kilshaw travelled to Cartmel for the event that starts and finishes at the town’s racecourse, travelling along footpaths and bridal ways, giving panoramic views of Morecambe Bay and the surrounding parks.

This was a tough run due to the weather leading up to the event, and participants had to dodge puddles and navigate deep mud.

All members ran together, crossing the finish line, hand in hand, in a great time of 2hrs 7mins. Not only were participants rewarded with a finishing t-shirt, but they also received a famous Cartmel sticky toffee pudding.

On Sunday, four Lostockers competed in the Worsley Wood Five-Mile Trail Race, organised by Swinton Running club.

As the name suggests, it takes in the scenic trails of the woods and is mixed terrain making it a challenging run.

The first Lostocker to cross the finish line was Andy Laycock in an impressive 40:34, followed Rachel Hancock, in 43:06, Rachel Stevens (51:18) and Ste Hancock (52:48).

Sunday also saw members compete in the world’s first closed road running festival in Warrington. According to Runthrough, the organisers of the event, there were 6,000 free places over the three distances which saw more than 20,000 people enter the ballot.

Three Lostockers took on the longest distance in the event covering the half-marathon distance. The run started and ended at the gold gates in Warrington town centre, heading into Victoria Park adjacent to the Manchester Ship Canal. Once through the park, the 10k group went left and the half-marathon runners headed on towards Stockton Heath village to begin a slow gradual climb of about four miles through the countryside before looping and making their way back downhill towards the town centre.

First back for Lostock AC was Paul Lacey in 1:46:41, followed by Jo McManus, in 1:49:58, and then Mike Berry, in 2:13:38.

Rachel Hancock, meanwhile, celebrated her 250th parkrun, completing the 5k course at Bolton.

In other parkrun news, Sinead Carney (33:36) joined 906 runners at Clapham Common Parkrun. Closer to home, Chris Taylor (29:55) and Karen Taylor (36:40) travelled to Haigh Parkrun and Mark Checkley (31:46) completed Pennington Flash Parkrun.