Todmorden Harriers Ladies Team were the star performers of the club’s five teams at Sunday’s Pennine Bridleway Relay. The event is organised by Rossendale Harriers and follows a full circuit of the 47 mile Mary Townley Loop. The distance is split into 5 legs which are each run by a pair of different runners, and with over 90 teams entered involved nearly 1000 runners. After some early morning mist, the day was bathed in glorious winter sunshine and light winds throughout the day.
Starting at Waterfoot, the first leg follows the trail to Holme Chapel before a climb to the finish near Coal Clough. The ladies opening pairing of Rachel Skinner and Kay Leigh put in a solid start and the club lay in third place behind Clayton Le Moors and Calder Valley.
Lauren Jeska and Sarah May then set the fastest ladies leg time of the day on the 2nd stage and handed over at Callis Bridge in 2nd place behind Calder Valley’s Helen Fines and Jo Waites who had taken up the overall lead, as Clayton slipped to third.
Clayton then set the fastest time on leg 3 but Chris Preston and Sarah Warburton kept Todmorden in 2nd place with the next best time as the race travelled across to Calderbrook.
A late personnel change on leg 4 saw Kerry Edwards brought in to partner Karen Gray and they worked hard to hold onto their position under a stiff challenge from Clayton on the shortest leg of the day.
At the final handover Clayton were just 3 seconds behind and the final tough stage over Rooley Moor and an icy descent back into Waterfoot saw Clayton overtake final Todmorden pair Mel Blackhurst and Lucy Hobbs to follow Calder Valley over the line.
The men’s’ A team finished the day in 12th place overall, with the 4th leg pairing of Sean Carey and Andrew Wrench setting the 2nd fastest leg time of the day. 
The men’s’ B team set the 2nd fastest B team performance to finish in 27th place overall. 
The Mixed Team were 68th and Allstars team were 80th.
No comments:
Post a Comment