The Pennington Flash 5 Mile Trail Race on the 28th of August saw a six-strong BUH team take their place on the start line in beautiful sunny conditions. Starting with a lap of the track, and then heading onto the trails before a sprint back onto the track for the finish, the Bolton Harriers all performed solidly.
First blue vest home was the irrepressible Calum Brooks, who took on board coach Dave Shaw’s advice of “Don’t set off like a *******.” He finished third overall in a time of 29.27, after not allowing his bumps and bruises from his recent disagreement with a stone wall at the Horwich Race get the better of him. Calum explained that he really enjoyed this race and deemed it his favourite so far on his first CLGP. His experiment with pinning his race number underneath his armpit seemed to go well, so be on the look out for further innovations from Calum at future races.
The first BUH lady to cross the finish line was Heather Tomlinson, who continued her terrific CLGP form; finishing once again as first lady overall. Ending up in 8th place with a time of 31.40, Heather didn’t hang around to celebrate, and headed straight off after the race for some more marathon training.
Finishing just ahead of Heather was Scott Sunderland, in a time of 31.31. Having raced at the Mid-Cheshire 5k on Friday night, followed by a late night at the airport on Saturday and also eating a McDonald’s breakfast before the race, you might think that “Fast Scott” would be forced to slow down. However, he defied the odds and produced another fantastic performance. Scott said, ” It was my first time around Pennington Flash and I really enjoyed it. It was a great race on a lovely day, I’m looking forward to racing in the rest of the CLGP races coming up.”
Second lady home for the Harriers was Oriel Hardman who had set a goal of a 40 minute finish before the race, so her time of 34.23 (4th lady/20th overall) saw her easily crush her target and Oriel advised that she “surprised myself.”
Completing the results for BUH were Rachel Bailey (6th lady/33rd – 35.56) and Dominic Sohor (34th – 35.59) who finished without having been tempted to switch sports after an unexpected detour across the golf course towards the end of the race. Dominic said, “A wonderful morning in fantastic conditions. Thanks to Leigh Harriers for organising a cracking event. I’m already looking forward to next year!”
Next comes the busy month of September, with 3 CLGP races and it remains to be seen if BUH can build on their great start to the campaign and finish strongly.