THE latest graduates from the 5k Run Group in Blackburn completed their celebration 5k run around Witton Park on Saturday.

The 160 runners, comprising children to grandparents, who came through the group’s award-winning and NHS-backed ‘Couch to 5k’ programme were cheered on by friends and family.

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More than 1,300 people from Blackburn have now undertaken the nine-week programme.

The programme, which is now in its fifth session, was set up Rick Wilson, who lives in the town.

He was inspired to start it after he volunteered to take part in a 10k race in the autumn of 2013 and, being totally unfit, he knew he needed to train for this.

The programme is free and no-one is paid, money to fund the group has been obtained through sponsorship from local firms, with some support from Blackburn with Darwen Council.

The 5k Run Group won the ‘healthy’ category of the Pat on the Back Awards, run by Blackburn with Darwen Strategic Partnership, this year.

It has also been visited by representatives from Run England and British Athletics as it is the most well attended group in the UK in getting inactive people to begin from scratch to get and keep themselves fitter.

The programme follows the NHS-approved ‘Couch to 5K’ itinerary and has gone from strength to strength, with a couple of dozen involved in the first sessions in 2013, then about 150 in the second, which ended in April 2014, and there were over 350 graduates in June 2014.

The first session of 2015 begins on Saturday, January 3 and details of how to sign up for this will soon be published on the group’s website www.5kgrouprun.co.uk.

Meanwhile, Chorley Athletic and Triathlon Club’s race walker Phil McCullagh won the Dick Maxwell Handicap Challenge Trophy in a personal best time of66 minutes and 52 seconds, beating his coach John Payn and former clubmate Claire Goulden in the process.