Katie Wins Commonwealth Title.






Katie Ingram went one better than the Silver medal she won on Friday- for the Up Hill only race – by winning outright the Up & Down race today which centered on the Latrigg Fell overlooking the town of Keswick. The 9k two lap course climbed twice to the 1200ft summit before descending back into Fitz Park for the finish. Her main rival in the race was England colleague Sarah Tunstall who was hot favourite to take the title after only choosing to race the Up & Down course, as opposed to Katie who elected to do the double, having raced to the top of Skiddaw on the Up Hill course two days previous. But Katie‘s strength and tactics paid off as she closed down the first lap lead of Sarah as they climbed for the final time to Latigg summit, overtaking her on the steepest part of the course and creating a winning margin on the descent back into the finish. Her winning time of 40.12 was a clear 48 seconds. Katie’s final medal tally for the two races was Three Gold and One Silver medal, having also collected two team Gold’s.

Katie will now take a week’s well earned holiday in Portugal before embarking on her new athletics career as a tri-athlete, having been accepted on the Tri-Gold programme which is fully sponsored by British Triathlon, the National Governing Body for the sport. The programme is intended to fast track those athletes of a proven running ability through a year’s intensive tri training at Loughborough University, with the intention of preparing them for the 2012 Olympics.

Results: http://www.cumbriacommonwealthchampionships.org/Results.htm

Open Race 12k Three Lap Course of Latrigg.

It was only a small contingent from the club who came all the way to Keswick to run the open race, but they made a big impression. Gary Priestley had a super race leading all the way round the course and looking set to win by a clear margin, but with blistering feet and a fast finishing Scottish International Prasad Prasad (yes that’s right!) on his heels, he just missed out on the run in, losing it by 5 secs, but it was a great performance. Equally impressive was Suzanne Budgett who finished fourth lady and first 0/45, Suzanne had the target of Steve Jackson just in front, which obviously worked as she went past Steve on the last lap, finishing very strongly. In Steve’s defence down hill running these days is no fun, but he ran well enough to take the first 0/55 category, well done Steve.

Results Open Race: http://www.race-results.co.uk/results/2009/mounts.htm