Report by Gill Myers :-
Only a few Wharfedalers made the trip up to Grasmere on Saturday for the annual end- of-season knees up and unfortunately the only two members who had won awards could not attend.
Graham Breeze had won a hard-earned English Championship silver medal in his age category and Sam Watson was a very creditable 5th and a trophy winner in the Lakeland Classics series.
However their absence did not prevent us giving a hearty Wharfedale cheer nor dampened our celebrations.
As is only appropriate the presentation evening was preceded by a fell race in the locality and for 2015 it was a one-off event called the Badger Bar Blast. This was basically the 11km out and back route of the Loughrigg and Silver Howe race except that it was based at the Badger Bar pub.
For the race it was a dry, clear day with some snow on the tops but a freezing wind, as this chilled Silver Howe marshal will confirm.
Carl Bell (Keswick) won in 59.09 with Jasmine Paris (Carnethy) 11th and First Lady in 64.58, beating Victoria Wilkinson (Bingley) by 14 seconds.
There were 120 runners in total and for Wharfedale Luke Appleyard finished in 56th (82.10) and Jean Powell was 79th (2nd FV45 and 10th lady) in 88.10. Kirsty Hall and Clare Pearson decided they needed to conserve all their strength to do justice to the evening’s activities although “Jean the Machine” had more than enough energy to do justice to events both on the fell and on the dance floor.
Here’s to next year and even more Wharfedale medals.