AT THE weekend the Harriers were celebrating Lukas Siska’s brilliant third place in his first-ever Ironman.

Siska, who represents Slovakia, is a long-standing Horwich member and said the UK Ironman Championships, held in Bolton, just had to be his first ever entry in the event.

He was elated with the huge support he got around the course.

Siska, who is an international triathlete, was in second place after the swim at Pennington Flash and used all of his professional experience in sport to keep a strong and measured pace in the bike ride before completing the third element – a marathon along Chorley New Road.

Ian Collings and Ian Hamer were Horwich’s other representatives in the Ironman.

Their assiduous training schedules were rewarded with great performances on a tough new course, with Collings 30th of 363 V40 entrants and Hamer 20th of 111 V55 competitors.

Julie Williamson is a determined ultra sportswoman and has recently completed the Lakeland 100k trail race on a route that includes more than 10,000ft of ascent and on this occasion the race had 38 retirements so Williamson was rightly pleased with her achievement, including being first F50.

Closer to home was Radcliffe Athletics Club’s Bull Hill race on Holcombe Moor and the Harriers had a fine evening with Phil Marsden winning the race and leading the Harriers to the team prize with Dan Gilbert and Robert Seddon joining Phil in the ‘A team.

Seddon, fresh from triumph in the Mountain Marathon last week, had a clear male junior category win.

Suzanne Budgett was first F55.

Dan Gilbert and David Barnes then made the trip to the edge of Snowdonia for the Tal y Fan race where Gilbert achieved a top-10 place on a day when some runners, including Barnes, got lost in unexpected clag on the tops.

Wigan and District Harriers’ popular Primary League resulted in another set of medal-winning performances for Horwich’s juniors at Robin Park including Ryan McCaffery, Aiden McKenna, Alistair Sharrock and Chidera Ajet.

In the older age groups, Toby Middleton and Luke Brindle were honing their race skills in a high-quality field at the Trafford AC Grand Prix with 4:16 and 4:20 times in the 1500m.

Brindle then took first place at Haigh Woodland parkrun with a new personal best of 17:33, beating seasoned senior Alastair Murray into second place.

There was also a Horwich one-two at Bolton parkrun with James Scott-Farrington also getting a new personal best, ahead of Zachary Howe.

Erica Booth was the first woman at Preston and Nick Leigh was second across the line at Richmond.

Results

Lakeland 100k Ultra trail race – 75th Julie Williamson 20:36:25;

Sale Sizzler (Wythenshawe) – 31st Michael Chadderton 17:00; 180th Marcus Taylor 20:09;

Bull Hill fell race (Hawkshaw) – 1st Phil Marsden 44:37; 6th Dan Gilbert 51:45; 7th Robert Seddon 52:02; 52nd David Barnes 01:05:15; 63rd Tony Hesketh 01:07:30; 67th Mark Seddon 01:08:36; 76th Suzanne Budgett 01:10:29;

Ilkley half marathon – 577th Sam Kavanagh 01:53:58;

Warton 10k road race – 13th David Unsworth 46:48; 47th Bernadette Unsworth 56:40;

Tal y Fan fell race (Rowen) – 10th Dan Gilbert 01:16:54; 54th David Barnes 02:04:48;

Ironman UK Bolton – 3rd Lukas Siska 09:44:52; 202nd Ian Collings 12:19:51; 794th Ian Hamer 14:25:56.