Six Horwich Harriers took to the roads in Preston last Sunday and did the club proud over 10 miles.

Now in its 23rd year, Preston Harriers’ flagship 10-mile road race has become a major feature in the race calendar and regularly attracts large fields of more than 500 runners chasing personal-best times.

It lived up to its billing with a winning time under 50 minutes.

Sam Fairhurst, Marcus Taylor, Richard O’Reilly, Mike Counsell, Gary Porteous and Steph McKee stood at the start line for Horwich, braving the heavy rain.

Fairhurst led the way home for the club in 16th place, followed by Taylor (62), O’Reilly (72), Counsell (134), Gary Porteous (140) and Steph McKee (197).

O’Reilly placed highest on an age-category basis nabbing fourth, pipping Taylor by one position to continue this pair’s friendly competitive rivalry. There were PBs for Fairhurst, O’Reilly and McKee over the distance.

The previous day 14 local teams prepared to battle it out in the third round of the South East Lancs Cross-Country season but the weather had other ideas and for the second time this season a round was cancelled due to a waterlogged course.

While that was cancelled, the hardy breed that are fell runners had no such qualms concerning soggy fields, as two Horwich runners - fell-running captain Dan Gilbert and Julian Goudge - donned the red and black to compete in the Tour of Pendle race.

The course covers a distance of 27 kilometres with 4,833 feet of ascent across Pennine moorlands - a brutal race.

Goudge ran well from the start and was just outside the top 10 around the mid-point, but over a tougher second half he dropped down the order finishing in 34th position and fourth v50.

Gilbert finished in 20th, also a fourth age category (v45) result with both bagging a prize apiece for a top-five finish and continuing their fine form on the fells this year.

In the weekly parkruns, O’ Reilly (Vet 55), clocked up a fifth overall and first in age category on the longer and allegedly tougher Haigh Hall “B” route, using it as a warm-up for the Preston 10 miler the following day.

Also at Haigh Hall, Tony Hesketh was first Vet75, Gillian Smith finished first lady vet 70 and Ethan Isaacs was ninth.

Horwich is producing a string of quality twilight-year runners and foremost among them is multiple England vest holder, Gareth Webb who produced another cracking performance, finishing 40th from nearly 500 runners and first Vet 65 with an incredible 87.44-per-cent age grading at Alexandra Park.

Unsurprisingly this was the highest age-grade rating of any Harrier last weekend.

In other parkruns, Lindsey Brindle and Sean McMyler ran at Heaton Park, clocking 38th and 41st, respectively, while at Bolton’s Leverhulme Park, Andrew Storey took 137th place.

Continuing their parkrun tour, the Middletons were running at Widnes. Jason, in 128th, was ahead of wife, Janet, some 41 positions behind. Further afield Robert Seddon claimed fourth at Woodhouse.

Another fine veteran, Robert Jackson, had a solid run in the Tatton Half Marathon, finishing fifth Vet55 in a quality field only a few seconds behind his Manchester half marathon time of five weeks previous on this more challenging and undulating course.

Two of Horwich’s up-and-coming star runners, currently in the under-20s category, Isaac Battye and Benjamin Hall, took part in the very quick Podium Classic 5k.

Running in the fastest ‘A’ race, Battye finished a commendable 32nd and Hall was 52nd, both setting impressive times.

Elsewhere, in his last race of the year and in England for the foreseeable future pending his relocation to Germany, Steve Thomasson returned to his 5k PB ground at the Power of 5K, Lancaster and bagged a new PB to cap off a remarkable 2023 showing his versatility with five PBs over three separate distances.