Freckleton Half
THE Freckleton Classic is reputed to be the oldest half marathon in Britain. It was first staged in June 1985, and is now ranked as one of the best races in the country.
On Sunday, Dave King headed up to Lancashire to take part in the race, which is held in the town of Freckleton, just outside of Preston and just a stone's throw from Blackpool.
While there were floods and heavy rainfall on the other side of the Pennines, the weather was perfectly balmy in Freckleton as 497 runners took part in the race, which also doubled up as the Lancashire Half Marathon Championship.
This was an extremely well organised race with five drinks stations, two shower points, and plenty of impromptu drinks stations along the way as crowds turned out in their many hundreds for the race. Among the runners was Ron Hill, probably the great runner of his generation and now aged 69, who ran for Clayton Le Moor Harriers to finish 273rd in 1hr 53min 10sec.
Dave had a good run to finish strongly in a time of 1hr 38min 2sec and 116th overall. The winner was Ben Fish from Blackburn Harriers in 1.09.44