Baildon Boundary Way 2015 success for Bingley ladies. Sunday 12 April 2015

After a week of warm spring sunshine the weekend prepared for the Baildon Boundary Way, a half marathon ‘trail’ race, with rain on Saturday and a cold, breezy and rain forecast Sunday.  12 Bingley runners were amongst the crowd at the Baildon Rugby & Cricket club, hunched against the cold wind and splatters of rain.

A few personal perspectives : Tom Hooper was there to see if he could repeat his 2014 win.  Julie Thornton had to pull out at the last minute with a calf strain threatening her London marathon preparation;  Lesley Watson, nursing her ‘weak’ ankle took Julie’s place for a ‘strictly-non-racing’ training run for the Three Peaks. Phil Hawkswell, on his heart surgery comeback, booked in for the walk (with maybe some trotting!). Linda Kennedy was back in town for the weekend having now moved to Scotland.  Annmarie Roper was experimenting with different eating patterns having run out of energy a few times recently.  Becky Weight was looking for some longer races in the run up to the ‘long’ (18m) English Fell Champs race at the end of May.

With some new fencing in the fields, the start of the race was moved to the track at the top of the bank avoiding much of the previous uphill start from the lake.  Underfoot was reasonably dry and firm despite Saturday’s rain.  The earlier rain stopped as the 319 runners set off and dropping down to Esholt and along the canal it felt warmer and more sheltered.  As a local race there was lots of support and encouragement for the Bingley blue & white hoops along the way.   Climbing up Shipley Glen we ran into a short rain shower.   Thanks to Phil Hawkswell for sharing his jelly babies to give us a boost before heading out onto Baildon Moor and into the wind, behind us for a while and then cutting across as we looped back towards Baildon.

Shona Stone had a great run to finish 3^rd lady (and 2^nd F35) with Claire Cooper of Keighley & Craven leading the ladies in 1.34.07.  Becky Weight had a good run to finish 9^th lady (and 1^st F55), and Lesley Watson, despite sensibly walking some of the rough sections through the woods to look after her ankles, was 10^th lady, earning us the ladies team prize and just pipping Halifax Harriers to the post.

Tom ran a similar time to 2014  finishing 9^th against Frank Beresford’s winning time of 1.17.23.  Dominic and Martin both knocked over 15 minutes off their 2014 times; Martin, who ran as unattached last year commented ‘that’s what running with Bingley has done for me’.  Bingley men (3 runners / 61 points, Tom, Paul and Dominic) were only a few points off Pudsey & Bramley’s winning team score of 52.  ‘Heart-op-Phil’ walked (and distributed jelly babies!) in 3.10.26.