Tattenhall Host the fifth Race in the annual Borders League Series !

"It isn't the fastest runner that makes a race or indeed the slowest. It isn't the number of participants or the quality of the competition. It isn't the weather, the course or the supporters. It is: an experience shared; a pain overcome; a target achieved; a sense of achievement....."

Did I just say that? What sentimental tosh! Of course it's the weather, the runners; the marshals and car park attendants; the smiles and encouragement; the supporters, the camaraderie and not forgetting, the cakes!

And so it was that Tattenhall hosted the fifth race in the annual Borders League series on Sunday, 20 March. The races, each of just under 10km, pit individual against individual and club against club where final club positions are achieved by ranking the first four (women) or seven (men) finishers. It takes considerable planning to set up and marshal a race safely and congratulations and thanks should go to Jen and Rob Chambers for all the effort they put into ensuring the event was a very great success. Tattenhall is not a large club and the numbers required to host the race, combined with injuries, meant that we weren't unfortunately able to put out a full men's team but that didn't stop the women!

Sunday's race took 273 runners starting from the Flacca and heading out towards Harthill before climbing to Burwardsley Post Office and returning. The race was run by this year's leading male competitor, Eryri's, Alun Vaughan who won by a comfortable 39 seconds in a time of 32min 09 sec.

Tattenhall's women excelled once again with notable finishers including Alice Robinson taking 4th place overall, and 2nd in the SF category in 39 min 38sec, enabling her to take the lead in the women's competition overall. George Ross came in 6th place in the women's race and 1st in the FV35 category and Alli Grundy took 11th place overall and 2nd place in the FV40 category. Tattenhall's leading man was Rob Arden who crossed the line in 44th position overall in a time of 37min 36 sec.

We include an image of Gerry Cummins (one of our new members) crossing the line in under the hour!

All in all, it was a great race in glorious spring sunshine. The marshalling was first rate, the smiles and support highly necessary and vocal, and the cakes... well, let a picture tell the story!

Sharon Basford and Kate Lightfoot "Camaraderie and Cakes!"