A few Wharfedale members turned out for the first race of the New Year. The race was won by Shaun Dimelow of Penistone in 17:33. Bruce Elsworth had a good run to finish in 4th place, as did Catherine Wolfenden, who was only six seconds behind Ruth Whitehead of Bingley Harriers to finish 2nd lady. Angela Gray had her first run for some time to finish as 6th lady. Her sister Vicky was 9th lady. Kevin White also had a run out and finished in 20th place.

The finishing positions and times of the Wharfedalers were as follows:

Pos	Name	Time	Other
4	Bruce Elsworth	18:15
20	Kevin White	20:42
34	Catherine Wolfenden	22:07	2nd lady
64	Angela Gray	25:05
78	Vicky Rae	27:20

The last race of the year and sixteen of our members turned out for it. There were a lot of good runners in this race, including Alistair Brownlee, who not only won it, but set a new course record. His brother Jonathan also set a new under 18 course record. What a family! New member Ian Taylor had a good run and lead the team home in 18th place. He was followed shortly by Kirt Livesey, who was no doubt following him so as not to get lost. Our third man home was Jason Helmsley, which made us 4th team, behind Bingley 'A' and 'B' and Horwich. It was good to see a couple of our juniors out in the race. It appears that Jonathan Bradshaw had to drop out, but young Tom Cunningham had a good run to finish in 157th place.

Results are in the results section.

The finishing positions and times of the Wharfedalers were as follows:

Pos	Name	Time	Other
18	Ian Taylor	44:55
20	Kirt Livesey	45:09
47	Jason Helmsley	48:12
63	Gareth Hird	49:29
65	Jonathan Bradshaw	49:34
94	Paul Halstead	51:39
110	Sam Watson	52:34
145	Peter Jackson	54:04	V50
157	Tom Cunningham	55:24	U18
173	Tamara Hird	56:00	F
210	Nick Cunningham	57:29	V40
227	Simon Throup	58:18	V40
252	Carl Bradshaw	59:31	V40
254	Kevin Rogan	59:32	V50
273	Adam Baker	60:42
361	Kate Rogan	66:00	F

Several Harriers ran off the previous night's excesses in the annual 3 mile road race from Silsden, starting and finishing on the very steep Bradley Road. Jason Hemsley came first, in a slowish time, followed by Jonny Bradshaw in 3rd, Tamara Hird 8th (1st lady), Ben Johnstone 9th, Simon Throup 10th, Peter and Trevor Metcalfe, Lynne Whittaker, Emily Throup, Mr Gibson, David Hird and Barry Scholes. There may have been others. Results and photos may be available later.

The full results for this race are now available in the results section. They again show that Jonathan Bradshaw is once more on top form by beating quite a few seniors to come third. This follows on from his run in the Auld Lang Syne Race where he finished in 65th place just behind Gareth Hird. His name was shown as Jon Shaw and was not picked up as one of ours. If this young man keeps up his running, he is going to be a leading fell runner in the future.

Adam went over for this race and sent the following report of the day:

The temperature was about 3 degrees but with a very strong cold wind. I know there were a few Wharfedalers there. I saw saw Bruce Elsworth, a lady I am told was Catherine Wolfenden and a gent who I did not recognise, but assume that it was Kevin White, so there was at least 4 of us. The start was up hill and with a face full of wind, it was hard going. The moor was quite boggy and I struggled for a while, but seemed to get a second wind on the way back. I think my time was about 1hr 20mins. I did not see any of our runners as they will have come in before me. A good day and a true fell race with only 200 yds of road.

Full results will be posted shortly.

It was a beautiful fell running day that welcomed a well balanced Wharfedale team to Kendal - four men and four women. Our men were Chris Newman, Kevin Rogan, Neil Taylor and Barry Scholes. Our ladies were Kate Rogan, Angela Gray, Lynn Whittker and Kirsty Hall.
Times and positions were not available on the day and these will follow as soon as possible. However, Chris lead the team home in what looked like a reasonable position.
Kate was our first lady home followed by Angela, who is continuing her comeback after injury. She was pretty tired after the race, but had no adverse reaction in her legs. It was good to see Kirsty back on the fells, although as she neared the summit, she looked worn out. However, she regained her momentum on the return and finished strongly. She promised to go to the mid week run from Gargrave, so if she keeps this up, she will soon be back to her old form again.

Further details follow shortly.

The results are now available for this race and the event was won by the in form Karl Gray of Calder Valley. The leading lady was Jo Buckley of the same club.
Bruce managed a top ten position, finishing 8th overall.

Results are in the results section.

The finishing positions and times of the Wharfedalers were as follows:

Pos	Name	Time	Other
8	Bruce Elsworth	64:58
36	Kevin White	72:38
68	Adam Baker	80:22
103	Catherine Wolfenden	86:56

A couple of our juniors and Tamara Hird went over for this event. Ben was 35th in the U13 boys in a time of 13:10 and in the U15 Boys, Jonathan Bradshaw was 21st in a time of 18:09. In the Seniors Ladies event, Tamara came 56th in a time of 27:19.

The results are now available for this event. In our juniors, Ben Johnstone had a good race to finish 3rd in the U12 boys, in an event which probably suited him more than the Cross Country dash on the previous day. Probably the effects of the previous day prevented him doing even better. In the U12 girls, Ellis Hall had a run out to come 12th. Let us hope that she will stick at it. In the U15 boys, Jonathan Bradshaw had a good run to come 4th and again, would have probably done better without the Cross Country the day before. However, both of our youngsters probably will have benefited from the speed demanded by the Cross Country event.

In the seniors the race was won by Paul Dugdale of Kendal, followed by Alastair Dunn of Helm Hill and Mark Addison also of Helm Hill. The ladies race was won by Natalie White of Bingley.

Full results are in the results section.

The finishing positions and times of the Wharfedale Men were as follows:

Pos	Name	Time	Other
29	Chris Newman	45:49
45	Kevin Rogan	49:27	V50
46	Peter Metcalf	49:32	V50
53	Neil Taylor	51:01	V40
56	Barry Scholes	51:52	V50

And the finishing positions and times of the Wharfedale Ladies:

Pos	Name	Time	Other
5	Kate Rogan	52:50
9	Angela Gray	55:40
10	Lynn Whittaker	56:38	V40
11	Kirsty Hall	58:42

Two Wharfedalers went over for this race which Peter Keron describes as a tough course for a short one. The race was won by Lloyd Taggart of Dark Peak, in a time of 23:59. Both Wharfedalers did very well with John Perry finishing in 10th place and Peter finishing just behind him in 15th place.

Full results are in the results section.

Details are a bit sketchy for this for this race, but Kevin Rogan and Sam Watson ran in the seniors race and Ben Johnstone and Jonathan Bradshaw ran in the junior races. Ben had a great race, only just being pipped into to second place in the under 12s by James Hull of Bingley.

In the senior race, Sam Watson had a good run to finish in 9th place.

Further details and full results follow.

Young Jack Smith Approaching the Trig Point
Paul Rogan was at the summit with his camera and despite the awful photographic conditions, he has produced some good pictures of the night, which are now in the gallery.

Hopefully, a bit a video footage follows.

This was the third Owl event of this winter season and was a repeat of the one we held last year. Like last year, the weather was absolutely beautiful. It was again a still, clear night with widespread views from the top although some of the tracks and paths on the way up suffered from the recent spate of rainy weather. It was nice to welcome members from a diversity of other clubs, including 9 from Keighley & Craven, 2 from Skipton and 2 from Clayton. We also had runners from Spenborough, Bowland and Valley Striders. It was rather disappointing that we had no runners from local club, Ilkley, but perhaps they were invlolved with other things.
First to the top was Meg the dog, followed closely by Mark Horrocks and Ian Taylor. These three lead the field all the way round and finished together. Thereafter followed a steady stream of runners in fairly predicable order. The times of Tim Whitehead and Dave Ferguson do not reflect their running prowess, as they both did not follow the quickest way up.
The sad news of the night was that Sam Watson crocked his ankle again and had to retire. Sam is OK, but his ankle looked seriously swollen. Let us hope that he recovers soon.
We were made very welcome by the Landlord of the Swan who kindly provided a few bowls of chips to the runners and it was nice to see everyone of all clubs get together, talking about the sport that we love.
Kevin Rogan once more showed his ability to predict his time with uncanny accuracy, but the prize for the nearest guess of their time went to Andy Walmsley of Bowland, who ran the course within 2 seconds of his predicted time.
Hopefully, there will be another Owl event next month up Sharphaw and Roughaw. Further details will be posted in due course.

In the meantime the full results are here.

Neil Taylor went over for this race and sent the following report:

The 3rd race in this fine series was held today at Staveley, just outside Newby Bridge. And once again, a challenging course was laid on by Helm Hill club. Ben Johnston put in another great run in the U12 boys and finished 2nd, only 4 seconds behind winner James Hall, and in so doing set the standard for the seniors to follow! A remarkably warm day (though the term is of course still relative) was suggested by the weather at the start. The drizzle, nay out-and-out rain, in Skipton when we set off and the heavier precipitation encountered en-route appeared to have given way to a pleasant running day. The temperature did drop quite considerably with a bit of height though, and a recce up to the U14 turn for Kevin and I lead to the decision to deploy thermal tops underneath the famous Wharfedale colours. Mind, Kate being of hardier stock chose the "Watson-Newman" standard and ran in just the vest (..or was that just 'cos she couldn't persuade Chris to run back to the car to fetch her T shirt..?). Andy's traditional messing about running all over the fell led to us thinking that the missing 75th runner at the start was him still somewhere out on the course but no, he was there encouraging Lynne that there wouldn't really be that much mud (ha!). Pete meanwhile was keeping a low profile, with Baz busy chatting to folk all over t'field.
So, off we all set, up the hill; this one being one of those difficult hills where you know you really want to walk but you have to keep running 'cos it isn't that steep! You know, the sort where everyone's waiting for someone else to walk first so we all can (..cheers Kev by the way!). From the top of the first hill a bit of undulating and boggy ground led nicely to the soft-going of the cow fields. Soft also being a relative term! Strength sapping, deep, soggy, miserable, soul-destroying, soaking bog might be a more flowery description! A small bit of (soaking ) track lead to more of that flowery stuff, a drop down, short steep climb up and return by the outward route made what I'd think was about a 4 mile circuit. No seriously big or steep climbs but the conditions underfoot certainly left us all feeling that we'd worked hard...and moreover that we'd all well deserved our post-race discussion in the Huntsman Inn (Newby Bridge Hotel), amply accompanied of course by a variety of erm..liquid refreshments and..of course..chips!

Cheers again to the Helm Hilliers. Next week we'll be at Birkrigg for race No. 4. By the way, get well soon Sam - folk were asking after you! Also it was nice to see Anthony Shepherd of Settle taking photos today at the summit and getting back into training; and his lad David who continues to have a good race with Chris.

Times and positions unknown to us as yet but will be available in a couple of days. Our finishing order I think was:-

Pos	Name	Time	Other
23	Chris Newman	37:13
29	Andy Holden	38:29	V40
39	Kevin Rogan	40:31	V50
44	Neil Taylor	41:01	V40
47	Barry Scholes	41:33	V50
53	Kate Rogan	43:32	2nd lady
55	Peter Metcalfe	43:53	V50
66	Lynn Whittaker	51:19	5th lady

Ted Mason on the final hill
Ten Wharfedalers turned up to run in this event and there were quite a few supporters too, probably about seven in total. The conditions were windy, but otherwise dry, although it was a bit wet under foot on the tops.
The race was easily won by Ian Holmes. He was so far in front that at the top of the last hill before the final run in, he stopped and chatted to the marshalls for a while about the race. He was followed by Graham Pearce of Pudsey & Bramley and then Alex Whittem of Calder Valley.

Our runners did really well. Ted Mason was fourth on the final hill, but he was really struggling and actually running (as opposed to walking) with his hands on his thighs. He got passed on the hill and finished in 5th place, closely chased home by Kirt Livesey in 6th place and Bruce Elsworth in 7th. This must make Wharfedale the first team. Lucas Payne is showing that he is regaining some of his fitness again, by finishing in 17th place.

Mention must be made today of our juniors who turned out in the senior's race. Jack Smith, who came third in the under 16s race, finished unofficially in about 55th place in the seniors and represents and splendid run. Tom Cunningham also had a great run to finish 70th. Both these young men showed their respective fathers how to run a race.

Full results will be posted shortly, but in the meantime, the finishing positions of our runners were as follows:

Pos	Name	Time	Other
5	Ted Mason	48:23
6	Kirt Livesey	48:41
7	Bruce Elsworth	48:47
17	Lucas Payne	50:38
42	James Harrison	54:17
45	Paul Halstead	54:35
70	Tom Cunningham	57:14
66	Andy Smith	57:00
117	Nick Cunningham	60:57	V40
142	Adam Baker	64:03

The headlines of this event are that Ben Johnstone won the U12s race. As Neil says in his report, not only a win, but with style and determination. Well done Ben!

Neil sent his report of the day in his usual inimitable style.

Read Neil's Report.

The finishing positions of the Wharfedalers are shown below. Finishing positions and times follow in due course.

Pos	Name	Time	Other
	Kevin Rogan
	Neil Taylor
	Peter Metcalfe
	Kate Rogan		2nd Lady
	Lynn Whittaker		3rd Lady

The full results are now out for this race and they have confirmed, what seemed apparent on the day, that we were first team home. This was achieved by Ted Mason, Kirt Livesey and Bruce Elsworth all putting in good solid performances, to literally chase each other home and all end up with top ten places.

Well done to all three