It was a quiet weekend for Fylde athletes with no local competition and little on further afield as this month has five full weekends, unusual for a month and created a spare weekend in the athletics calendar.

There was a Power of 5k on a floodlit Friday evening round the cycle track at the Salt Ayre centre, creating an exciting evening of competition. Out of the 62 competitors there were new male and female course records of 14:11 and 16:59, and 53 competitors under 20 minutes.

In the first race in the Pilling 10k Spring Season on Saturday afternoon at 2pm, the winning times were 32:12 (male) and 41:45 (female) for race 1 of the series of 5, with a field of 45 runners.

This week was dominated by the main action for Wesham being the fourth fixture of the Mid Lancs cross country season at Blackpool’s Lawsons Ground, where the club were assisting with setting up the course and officiating as well as fielding two quality teams of runners. In fine weather after a cold start to the day Wesham had nine ladies running in the Senior Women’s 6km three lap course with Kay Twist leading the way and finishing 64^th and 8^th W50 in 30:16. Suzanne Leonard was 9^th W50 and 72^nd overall with 30:54 and Anne Mayers-Smith 10^th W40 and 84^th in 32:35. The ladies placed 21^st team and. Sharon Cooper was close behind in 86^th place and 14^th W45 timed at 32:45. Julie Paton was 93^rd and 15^th W45 in 33:56 to close in the “B” team in 25^th place. Louise Lord was 97^th and 16^th W45 with 34:18; Lucy Neighbour 99^th and 12^th W40 in 34:25; Claire Belfield 102^nd and 15^th W36 with 35:09; and Jo McCaffery 109^th in 36:49 for 14^th W40. The women overall were 12^th W35s team and 5^th in the W45s. Dave Young placed 4^th and 3^rd M70 in the accompanying Over-70 race over the same course, and Peter Bartlett 9^th overall and 6^th M70 in 40:17, with the pair finishing 3^rd M70 team with stiff competition from Clayton-le-Moors and Kendal AC. The Wesham M70s look set to win the series but must turn out at the next fixtures.

It was a week with something for everyone last weekend, although there were quite a few events across the north of England there were only really two options locally, the Lancashire County Cross County Championship on Saturday and the Garstang 10k on Sunday, both of which attracted significant numbers of Wesham members.

The Wesham club is currently on holiday with the first club meeting of the year on Monday, with the fifth winter handicap to enjoy as well.

Missed out of last week’s report as she was incorrectly credited with running for Blackpool, Michelle Tickle ran the Boxing Day 10k in Leyland, placing 17^th woman and 3^rd W45 in 49:01 (48:50 chip time) to finish 78^th in the run. This was her first race since being ill last year with coronavirus and having been set back. She has come back in top form after cutting her teeth and getting back to speed through a series of Saturday morning parkruns. This time last year she was in fine form and following the Wesham “Move Every Day” challenge in January she completed 253.4 miles in February by running the equivalent of three lengths of Wallsend to Bowness-on-Solway in the Wesham Virtual Hadrian’s Wall Challenge. Then in March she followed this up with the 192-mile out and back of Wesham’s Virtual West Highland Way, Milngavie to Fort William, completing this with another three stages (some 35 miles) of a third trip ending (conceptually) in Inverarnan at the north end of Loch Lomond.