Horwich Harriers were out in numbers at the weekend for the penultimate round of the Great Moors series, the 5 Trigs race at Delph.

Originally beginning life in 1971 as a training exercise for the members of the Oldham Mountain Rescue Team until 1973 when Alan Barber decided to don running shoes and race the approximately 30kms, with just shy of 1,000m, of ascent route around the moors in a time of four hours.

The 5 Trigs race was born - a no-route course competitors must navigate their way to five checkpoints in correct order.

Matt Fawthorp narrowly missed a podium finish, coming fourth in 2hrs 31mins 38secs, followed by fell-running club captain, Dan Gilbert, in sixth (first Vet 45, 2:40:43). There were also age-category wins for Lindsey Brindle, FV40 (2:58:12) and husband-and-wife duo Nick Kelly, V55 (3:06:35) and Sandra Kelly, FV55 (3:30:13).

After nine rounds the men’s team are top dogs while the ladies lie third overall. In the men’s open category, there is a battle for first with Sam Fairhurst and Fawthorp occupying the top two positions. Vying for men’s vet category honours are Kevin Newhall (second Vet 50), Nick Kelly (first vet 55) and another inter-club battle with Gary Chadderton and Doug Fleming first and second, respectively, for the Vet 60 title. John Parker is currently first V80.

For the ladies, Charlotte Wilkins is second LU23, with Alice Tucker and Emma Bradley battling for that final podium position. Currently occupying the LV40 bronze spot is Helen McDonald, with both Alison Mort (LV45) and Sandra Kelly (LV55), topping their age groups.

At parkrun, Robert Jackson stood with a near 500 field at South Manchester and, despite a somewhat hampered-by-injury slower than usual pace, finished with a sub-19 time of 18:58 and the usual Vet55 win.

Andrew Storey and Gail Maxfield ran the scenic Worsley Woods, finishing 152nd (27:14) and 187th (28:10), respectively.

The Middleton’s parkrun tour took Jason and Janet closer to home with a dash at Watergrove, Rochdale, completing in times of 33:04 (35th) and 36:30 (46th).

The ever-popular mixed surface and hilly Haigh Hall was the venue for vets Chris Charnley (32nd, 22:39 and third Vet 50-54) and Marcus Taylor, who did some pacing for a friend. Parkrunner of the week goes to Richard Pollitt, who was victorious at Dodder Valley in 18:03.

Away from the fells and woodlands, a number of Harrier road runners were out and about. Simon Bruton and Gareth Webb took on the Knutsford 10k. Starting within the beautiful grounds of Barclays Radbroke campus, runners head out onto the country lanes passing through Over Peover, Snelson and Peover Heath, before returning to Radbroke. With only 77 feet of elevation across the entire route, it is a flat, super-fast course. Bruton finished on the podium as third Vet 40 in a time of 34:10. Two steps on the podium better was fellow club runner Gareth Webb, taking victory in the Vet 65 category with sufficiently spritely run of 39:51 to nudge him one position higher in the UK rankings to a top 20 - 19th ranking place.