On a very sunny and sometimes breezy afternoon, 11 of our junior fell runners represented the club at the 2nd counter in the English Fell Championship. Not being a club championship or bonus race it was really pleasing to see them all there.
Rivington Pike is one of the oldest fell races in the country, but these days the juniors do a third of the route on tarmac before joining the fell side for steep lung busting climb to the top, followed by a speedy decent back to the finish.
On the day, in non championship races, Lilly Smith came 3rd girl in the U8’s, keeping up her great start to her first fell season. In U10’s, Harry Miller showed he is making progress with another good run.
In the championship races, we had 2 boys in the U12’s, Dylan Thornton and Jack Bradley both having great runs and showing a lot of promise in this challenging age group.
In the U14’s, 4 runners took part, the boys represented by Alex Stewart with Olivia Roper, Katie Smith and Lucy Miller in the girls. This was the order they came home, but a special mention to Olivia who had a great run to follow up on the quick times she’s been setting at the Bunny runs.
In the U16’s, 3 runners took part, Matt Merrick and Ryan Bradley in the boys and Vicki Merrick in the girls. All running the same route as the U14’s which took in the whole climb to the summit. Again, all had great runs with Vicki taking 6th place in the girl’s race.
In the team event, with points are taken from the top 3 finishers from any of the championship races then added together. After the 1st race, Pendle, Bingely were currently in 12th position out of 44 clubs, so hopefully we will have made up a few places after the Rivington race.