Wharfedale Harriers had 4 teams entered in this event – 2 ladies teams and 2 mens teams. Wharfedale Ladies had a brilliant day – finishing first ladies team for the first time in this prestigious event. After an exciting contest Wharfedale finished just over four and a half minutes ahead for their nearest rivals Holmfirth Ladies who were winners of the Calderdale Way Relay ladies team event for the last 2 years.
Louisa Pickles and Clare Pearson on the first leg got the ladies off to a great start with over a 6 minute lead ahead of the next ladies team – Keighley and Craven (K&C). On the 2nd leg Fiona Greening and Fiona Raby had a good strong run finishing with a 3 and a half minute lead from Holmfirth and Clayton ladies. On the short but tough mainly uphill 3rd leg – Kali Taylor and Chris Whittaker had a good run to maintain their 4 minute lead over Holmfirth, with Clayton and K&C a further 6 minutes behind. Gill Myers and Kirsty Hall took the baton for the hilly 4th leg, however Kirsty twisted her ankle early on leg 4 which slowed their progress but they battled on well and were only overhauled by a strong Holmfirth pair who managed to pull out a 4 and a half minute lead over Wharfedale going into leg 5. However Clayton and K&C were now over 10 minutes behind Wharfedale. The leg 5 ladies set off on the mass start and Emma Dodd and Angela Donlan had a great run to finish just 15 seconds behind the Holmfirth pair. So the leg 6 ladies set off on the mass start not knowing how the leg 5 ladies had done, but knowing they had a likely 4 – 5 minute deficit to make up. However Sarah Tipler and Naomi Parsons had a fantastic run to finish first leadies team back, 17th fastest on the leg overall and over 6 minutes ahead of K&C and Clayton with Holmfirth a further 3 minutes behind. After an agonizing wait at the finish when the leg times affected by the mass start were calculated – it was finally announced that Wharfedale Ladies had managed overhaul Holmfirth’s 4 minute lead and were the winners by over 4 and a half minutes from Holmfirth Harriers in 2nd, Clayton 3rd and K&C in 4th.
Kirsty went to A&E following the race with a suspected broken ankle – the x-ray revealed badly damaged ligaments, showing how tough Kirsty is to finish the leg. Get well soon Kirsty.
However after the success of last year when the Wharfedale Men won the event for the first time – this year was a disaster. Paul Crabby Crabtree and Ed Evans got the lads off to a good start in 5th place. Jack Holder and Owen Bielby made a promising start to leg 2, but then disaster struck when Jack went over on his ankle very badly and had to retire from the leg. After helping his partner – Owen went on to finish the leg on his own handing over in about 7th place. Jonny Bradshaw and Paul Carman had a good run on leg 3 maintaining their position to hand over to Ted Mason and Sam Watson on leg 4. Sam and Ted had a storming run to bring the lads back into contention in 2nd place, however by now Sale Harriers had a commanding 12 minute lead. On leg 5 the fast pairing of Spencer Riley and Nick Charlesworth were determined to eat into some of Sale’s lead and consolidate their position to give the guys on leg 6 a chance. However after turning his foot near the start of the leg – Spencer ran the rest of the leg in agony and so understandably they were passed by a 3 teams to finish the leg in 5th place. The fast leg 6 runners – Gareth Hird and Christian Holmes set off with gusto, however they took a wrong turn with a couple of miles to go and ran an extra mile, loosing all the places and time they had gained to finish in 5th place overall. Sale won the race, Clayton were 2nd, Todmorden 3rd and Calder Valley 4th. However when the official results were announced the team were disqualified due to missing kit. It turns out that one of the team did not have a map and so the whole team were disqualified!
Jack Holder and Spencer Riley went to A&E after the race. Jack’s ankle was not broken but he has badly damaged ligaments. Spencer was found to have broken a bone in his foot and is now in plaster so he did extremely well to finish his leg. Here’s wishing them both a speedy recovery.
The Wharfedale Mens B team suffered no mishaps and had a good team performance to finish 17th overall. On the first leg were Keith Holder and Martin Farrar finishing strongly in 30th position overall. On leg 2 Colin Moses and Peter Dimitrijevic had a great run to take the team up to 23rd place with the 12th fastest run on leg 2 overall. Carl Bradshaw and Piers Barber gained another place to take the team up to 22nd place. Then on the fell runners favourite, leg 4 – Paul Crabtree and Mark Sennett had a great run with the 8th fastest leg 4 run of the day – taking the team up to 16th place. Scott Davies and Mick Bray had another good run on leg 5 gaining another place and handing over in 15th place just before the cut off. Thanks to the good run from Scott and Mick – Paul Hindle was able to maintain his record of never starting on a mass start and together with Chris Jones they took on the long 6th leg and ran well to lead the team home in 17th place overall.
In the Wharfedale Ladies B team Helen Shaw and Jean Powell had a tough start with Helen full of cold and Jean struggling as she didn’t realise the muscle she had pulled in her leg the previous day was so bad. They finished the leg in 76th place. However the leg 2 runners of Lisa Holmes and Lucy Mallinson had set off on the mass start, so they were able to race with the other runners and had a good run to gain a place after recently being drafted into this leg. Sarah Wilson and Trish Gill had a tough run on this uphill 3rd leg in the by now warm weather, but still managed to gain a place. Caroline Pollard and Caren Crabtree had a great run on the hilly leg 4 to gain another 3 places. First time relay runners Dawn Denton and Caroline Harrison put there disasterous reccie behind them to finish well in 1.29.36. Bridget Thompson and Karen Gorman also had a good run on the long leg 6 to maintain position and lead the team home in a creditable 71st place out of 83 teams teams which started.
Full results are here – http://www.halifaxharriers.co.uk/results/calderdale/relay-2013/