Coniston 14

[Tue 31st Mar 2009] On a cold, blustery day, 5 members of Blyth descended on the village of Coniston in the Lake District to take part in the very popular Coniston ‘14’ road race. The race, which starts and finishes in Coniston, takes runners on a very scenic, but hilly loop around Coniston Water with fantastic views of the Coniston Fells on the way back, which this year had a covering of snow on the tops. The second half of the race which was run into a strong gusty headwind made for slow times all round. First back for Blyth was Steve Walker finishing 132nd in a time of 1:38:10, closely followed by Mal Darbyshire (145th in 1:38:51), then came Joe Frazer (186th in 1:41:28), Steve Bangs (1010th in 2:10:38) and Sue Walker (1132nd in 2:16:20). For the record, the winning time was 1:15:56 and there were 1472 finishers. If anybody fancies doing the race in future years it is always oversubscribed and entries need to be in by Christmas at the latest.