Sun 21 May 2017
A bright clear day greeted runners for the 33rd annual Calderdale Way Relay race, which is organised by Halifax Harriers. The race sees 96 teams take part. With six legs of varying distances run in pairs who must stay together, over 1,100 runners took to the trails and fells above Halifax and the Calder Valley. Gethin Butler and David Rigby ran for the Harriers A team on leg 1 and they posted a time of 1:15.10 for the 10 ½ mile route, and 5th fastest. Dave Parkington and Tony Livesey maintained the momentum on leg 2 from Cragg Vale to Todmorden as they were 10th quickest. Richard Smith and Kevin Hunt took on the short leg 3 up to Blackshaw Head, with the team overall position now 9th. Andrew Harrison and Alan Durney ran leg 4 to Wainstalls over almost 9½ miles whilst at leg 5, John Griffiths had to run with Neil McDonald after a no show resulted in Neil moving up to the A team at the very last few seconds. They ran well to maintain position and the last leg from Shelf to Heath Rugby Club saw Simon Collins and Lee Foley run superbly for an overall very good 12th in a total team time of 6 hrs 57.49.
Harriers B team were 40th, an improvement of fifteen places on 2016. Roy Parkinson and Stephen Bonsu ran leg 1, whilst Stephen Mort and Steve Needham picked up leg 2. Emma Essex-Crosby and Michael McLoughlin took the baton on leg 3, and Oliver Heaton and Chris Wales ran leg 4. With Andrew Harrison having just completed leg 4 for the A team, and there being now no spare runner for the B team on leg 5, after the late change, he carried on in true club sprit to run with John Rainford and completed a day’s running of almost 17 miles. The last leg was run by Alan Appleby & Mark Lee. The winners were local team, Calder Valley Fell Runners, who were 3rd last year, and they recorded 5:59.55.