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Up hill, down Calderdale

22/12/2007

WHAT IS green and brown, has six legs and thousands of feet?

The answer is the annual Calderdale Way Relay Race and this year 12 Rochdale Harriers teamed up to complete the 50 mile off-road event around Halifax.

Mark Walker and Nigel Shaw rose before 6am to run Leg One, completing the section slightly faster than last year in 1-35.23.

On Leg Two, Martin O’Reilly’s expectations of a relatively comfortable run were dashed when a late injury meant he was paired with speedy Norman Eames. The two ran extremely well together, passing 10 other teams along the way to finish well ahead of schedule in 1-17.22.

The fastest performance of the day went to Ian Roberts and Matt Proctor on Leg Three. Despite heavy colds they completed the largely uphill leg in 19th position from the 112 teams.

The baton then passed to Mark Widdup and John Mayall for Leg Four. After some unplanned wall and barbed-wire fence climbing, the pair completed the leg slightly slower than they planned in 1-39.31.

Onto the muddiest of legs, and Mark Catherall and Stephen Leak were under relentless pressure from Mick Bull and John Cox of Middleton Harriers.

The Rochdale lads just managed to keep ahead of their rivals to complete Leg Five in 1-10.35.

Long time running partners Phil Roberts and Gordon Parr completed the final leg significantly faster than their target time.

Overall Rochdale finished 68th, in 8 hours 3 mins 20 secs, within a minute of last year’s time and in about the same position given the larger field.

The timings and positions for each leg run by Rochdale Harriers were:

Mark Walker & Nigel Shaw 1-35.23 (71); Martin O'Reilly & Norman Eames 1-17.22 (49), overall - 2-52.45 (61); Ian Roberts & Matt Proctor 0-43.44 (19), 3-36.29 (51); Mark Widdup & John Mayall, 1-39.31 (82), 5-16.00 (57); Stephen Leek & Mark Catheral, 1-10.35 (57), 6-26.35 (59); Phil Roberts & Gordon Parr, 1-36.45 (86), 8-03.20 (68).