THOLTHORPE 10K is a well established event in the North Yorkshire Championship and so attracts top athletes from all parts of the region.

The warm sunny weather brought out a record number of 473 runners to tackle the relatively flat all road course. It is thought of as a good PB course, with three Bedale and Aiskew Runners achieving just that.

Paul Berry led in the Bedale contingent in a PB time of 42 minutes and 30 seconds and a position of 65th overall, with the ever-improving Will Retchless very close behind in his PB time of 42.44 and 67th. The third PB was achieved by Paul Simpson in a time of 43.48 and 87th. Chris Lees followed in another excellent time of 44.20 and 91st. Running in the M60 category for Bedale was Raymond Lightle and John Hunter, with Raymond finishing strongly to finish 157th in 48.41, and John running a good race for a position of 367th in 62.58.

Nicola Simpson was the only woman from the Bedale club taking part, finishing strongly in a time of 46.03 for 128th overall, and an excellent 12th out of 200 women taking part. This was after finishing 1st woman in the Catterick 5K Parkrun the day before.

The previous Wednesday evening the excellent Sessay Swift 6K took place with Will Retchless, 29th in 23.50, this time just in front of Paul Berry, 33rd in 24.09, over the shorter distance. Raymond Lightle clocked 28.14 to finish 92nd, and Becky Smith was 101st out of the 228 taking part, in 29.04.

The Roseberry Topping Fell Race was another mid week event in the Esk Valley series, which entailed racing from the NT car park up to the trig point and back. Experienced fell runner Lena Conlin was pleased to record a time of 26.55, with recently rejoined member Caroline Pollard speeding to the top and back in 18.02 for a 1st place in the F55 category.

Raymond Lightle travelled to Burnsall to run in the village's Feast 10 mile race. It was a hilly moorland terrain and so Raymond was pleased to have finished in 1-22.45, which was 6 minutes faster than when he was 3 years younger!