Central Lancashire Grand Prix: Sunday 2 March 2014 – Trotters 5 Mile

A few Harriers turned out for the Trotters 5 mile trail race on Sunday. The race is part of the Central Lancashire Grand Prix, of which the Harriers are now a part.

For those who don’t know, the Grand Prix is a league of local clubs who each host a race. There are 11 in total. This year our own race, Blackleach Park, will be included in the Grand Prix. If you compete in a Grand Prix race it counts towards your individual ranking in the league. You need to compete in 7 of 11 races to complete the league and there are various categories and prizes, as well as team awards.

The idea is to encourage local clubs to support each others races as well as instilling a competitive edge, similar to the competition you might find in the cross country leagues.

The Trotters 5 was at Smithills park in Bolton and was hosted by Burnden Road Runners. The course was trail and consisted of 2 laps around the park.

It was a relaxed start (I, for one, didn’t actually realise the race had started until other people started dashing off!) but we soon got going through the park and did a short spell around a local housing estate. We were then directed past a farm and up a hill at the edge of the park, before sprinting down the hill back to the start for the second lap. This meant there was a fast downhill finish which is always encouraging for a weary runner!

There was an excellent friendly atmosphere and a great turn out from a lot of the local clubs, in particular Bolton, Swinton and Astley & Tyldesley were out in force. We were treated at the end to a goody bag including an old favourite, a curly wurly!

The committee would really like to encourage people to support the Central Lancs races and it would be great to have a few Harriers complete the league. There are 9 races remaining, however, one of these is our own race which Harriers cannot run (we need the numbers for marshals!), so there are 8 races remaining for Harriers to compete in. There is still a chance to get the 7 races in to complete the series for plenty of people!

Even if you are unlikely to finish the league please do support the races you can make. We are hoping that the membership of the Grand Prix will really boost our numbers at Blackleach Park, which is an important event for the Harriers fundraising for the year. We would like to make sure we are supporting the races of other clubs in return.

The next race in the series is the Radcliffe 10k on Sunday 27 April 2014. If you have any further queries about the series please do contact a member of the committee.

— Hannah Brierley