5 feb 09

Todmorden Harriers narrowly missed out on a top three place in the Pennine Bridleway Relay on Sunday by just 3 seconds, after over 5 hours of racing in strong icy winds with occasional snow flurries.
The final major fell relay race of the winter covers a full circuit of the 47 mile Mary Townley Loop and attracted a record 84 teams of 10 runners to tackle the near 7000 feet of climbing along the way. The distance is split into 5 legs which are each run by a pair of different runners.
Starting at Waterfoot, the first leg follows the trail to Holme Chapel before a ‘sting in the tail’ climb to the finish near Coal Clough, that was made all the harder by the tough weather conditions. Chris Smale and Sean Willis made the perfect start and headed the field at the first changeover, with a 14 second advantage over 2nd placed Rossendale. Jon Wright and Andrew Wrench took over for the 12.5 mile second leg, much of it straight into the cold easterly headwind, after which the team had lost the lead to Rossendale at the changeover at Callis Bridge.
The third leg saw Calder Valley take up the lead as Todmorden slipped back to third place, with team captain Andrew Horsfall and Alistair Rhodes-Dawson maintaining the challenge. After the shortest leg from Calderbrook, Dave Collins and Ben Crowther kept the team in third, as the overall lead switched back to Rossendale. The final leg back to Waterfoot saw Horwich RMI, with Todmorden resident James Logue and teammate, make dramatic progress through the field from 6th position and in a desperate dash for the finish Andy McFie and Nick Barber were split by the Horwich pair to cruelly lose out by the narrowest of margins.
Despite the disappointment on the line, this was the best team performance for some years and reflects the growing strength of the club.

The Ladies team also put in a strong challenge for honours and battled throughout with local rivals Calder Valley and Rossendale. With Rossendale leading after leg 1, Todmorden leapfrogged Calder Valley with a strong 2nd leg by Sarah May and Lauren Jeska to take the lead, before Calder Valley took pole position on the following leg which they then held to the finish. After Rossendale had closed the gap on leg 4, ladies team captain Mel Blackhurst and Lucy Hobbs ran a strong final leg to comfortably ensure 2nd place but were unable to close the gap on the leaders.

Matching that performance were the Men’s B team, who also finished as 2nd placed open B team, with new club ‘B’ records set by Simon Galloway and Mark Anderton on leg 3, and David Baldaro and Peter Bowles on leg 4. That helped the team to an excellent 23rd place overall.

Todmorden also had two further teams competing, and after the mixed team had held the advantage in the first two legs, the Z team then took up the initiative for the next two legs before the mixed team edged out the Z team on the final leg by 4 minutes and 2 places, finishing in 57th overall.