Pennine Bridleway Relay

Todmorden Harriers fielded five teams in the Pennine Bridleway Relay, last Sunday. Over 100 teams of ten runners took part in the event, which was organised by Rossendale Harriers, and followed a full circuit of the 47 mile Mary Townley Loop.

The distance is split into 5 legs, of varying lengths from 5.5 to 12.5 miles, each run by a pair of different runners. A light frost overnight meant the course was firm underfoot with occasional icy patches to negotiate, but the day remained dry and windless to provide for near perfect conditions.

Salford Harriers and Calder Valley set the pace at the front, with Salford holding a narrow 3 second lead at the start of the final leg back to Waterfoot, which they managed to slightly extend to win the event overall in a time of 4:49:10, less than a minute outside of the course record.

Todmorden Men’s A team put in a strong performance, with Sean Carey and Andrew Wrench recording the 3rd best time of the day on leg 4 to move them up from 15th to 12th. Team captain Nick Barber and Robin Tuddenham set the 6th best time on the final leg to gain a further two places as the team finished in 10th place with a total time of 5:17:21, improving on last year’s efforts by 12 minutes.

The ladies A team were in contention throughout but had to settle for second place at the finish, in a highly competitive battle for the ladies title. Lisa Parsons and Kath Brierley put in a solid performance to handover in 4th place, a few seconds behind 3rd placed Calder Valley, with Rossendale leading Clayton at the front.

English Fell Champion Lauren Jeska and Team Captain Sarah May then turned things on their head with Todmorden leading Calder Valley by over four minutes at the end of the 2nd leg.

Ali Richards and Sarah Warburton then put in a blistering run to set a new ladies course record on leg 3, to hand over an eight minute lead to Jayne Williams and Sarah Glyde. Calder Valley managed to claw a few seconds back on leg 4, before a strong final pairing of Jo Waites and Gayle Sugden put in a stunning run to overhaul Todmorden’s Mel Blackhurst and Lucy Hobbs to steal the win in 6:03:02.

The Todmorden ladies were left to console themselves that they had at least improved by 13 minutes on the previous year, to finish in a highly respectable time of 6:09:38, which would have been good enough to win the competition in many years.

For the first time the club also fielded a Ladies B team, who put in a fine effort to finish second placed ladies B team behind Clayton le Moors B, in a time of 7:21:11 and 89th overall.

The Men’s B team finished in 32nd place in a time of 5:55:24, also 13 minutes faster than 12 months ago, with club B records being set on leg 2 by Andy McFie and Peter Bowles and on leg 3 by Marcel Ellison and David Baldaro.

Pictures by Myra Wells

The Todmorden Allstars team also enjoyed a strong performance to improve on their time from 2010 by just short of an hour. They crossed the line in a total time of 6:40:05 and 64th place.


2011 Pennine Bridleway Relay Full Results...

Myra's Photos (leg 3 and leg 4)...

Sports Sunday Pics...   leg 1 | leg 2 | leg 3 |  leg 5