Today the team provided standby rescue cover for a brand new race on the local moorlands, ‘Jackals Run,’ which started at 10.00hrs.

Organised by Stuart Repon-Ness, this new event took in a 10 km course, starting and finishing at Sunnyhurst Woods, Darwen, with a route fringing the Tockholes area, the margins and top of Darwen Moor.

A very sunny and warm Spring day greeted the 134 runners taking part, all of whom successfully completed the event.

Twelve Bolton MRT operational team members attended today, strategically in place around the course route, in case of need, in three of our Land Rover Defender Mountain Rescue Ambulances, and our Incident Control Vehicle, with our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE co-ordinating the teams attendance, and our Training Officer Alistair Greenough acting as our start / finish liaison.

Fortunately no calls were made on our services today, with the event finishing early in the afternoon, after a one circuit / two circuit run, depending on the whichever part of the race the entrants had made.

Should this new event take place next year, the team is happy to be associated and support Jackals Run 2017.

During this event, whilst team members were parked at Roddlesworth Information Centre / Vaughn’s Cafe, two former Bolton MRT team members who were out walking in the local area, called in to renew old acquaintances with those in the team who remembered them – Chris Kirkham, a former Team Training Officer, from the early 1990s, now back in the area after a long period away on military service, and Alan Livesey (in the company of his wife Sue)