It was a glorious sunny weekend at Edale Country Fair were 14 amazing Buxton Juniors took on Edale Fell Race the first race in the Accelerate Gritstone series.  Edale would have been the second race in this iconic series but Wolfe’s Pit had to be cancelled after heavy snow fall. The series comprises of 5 races with the youngsters best 3 scores  counting towards their overall position – 2 races for the under 10’s.  The Buxton team are off to an excellent start with superstars Sam Soles and Lucy Bednall being overall male and females leaders in the under 16’s category.

Rachel Cudahy had a great run to start in an outstanding 2nd place with Molly Golden coming in 4th.  In the under 10’s race Henry Hazelhurst finished 9th followed by team mate Liam Jones in 10th.

In the over 10’s race Harry Bond chased Sam to come in 4th under 16 boy.  Buxton under 16 girls took a clean sweep in their category with Lucy was chased in by Ellie Wilson in 2nd and Ava Hazelhurst 3rd.

Grace Longden put in a strong first performance to come in 2nd under 12 girl.  She was followed by Sienna Philips in 4th, Rebecca Cudahy in 8th and Grace Bond in 9th.  Ed Hazelhurst and Matt Rolfe ran in the under 12 boys category coming in 7th and 9th.

In the adult race  a super tough ascent over the Edale skyline over 4.7miles with 1319ft of ascent it was  Buxton’s youngsters who shone for the club with 18 year old Helen Thornhill winning the ladies title and 17 year old Jacob Winfield finishing 45th – 3rd MU23 despite arriving 7 mins late to the start and playing catch up the whole way round!!

Photo: Sam Soles