From Dan McKeown…
As the dust settles on May’s slate of fixtures, the time is ripe for another roundup of the comings, goings, doings and don’tings of our club race league. I’ll spare you the usual preamble about the rules – it’s all available on our dedicated race league page, along with the fixtures and whatnot.
The month opened with a great result for Harriers at the Dick Hudson race, where Tom, Oli and Lawrence swept the podium, Tom set a new course record and Ilkley ran away with the men’s team prize. Unfortunately – and to my absolute horror – there were NO finish times available, because of an issue with timing.
This meant that your humble race league administrator had to wade through all the Strava results and whatever else I could find to conjure up a list of finish times so I could calculate everyone’s scores. This was a bit of an eyeball-drier of a job, but as I was laid low with COVID at the time, it wasn’t as if I had a right lot else to do.
Once I’d captured, calculated, inferred or just made up a finish time for everyone, in the spirit of sharing, I sent the list over to race hosts Wharfedale Harriers with a note to explain that I’m not a creepy stalking weirdo, just an industrious and very harmless race league fellow. They responded with a short note of thanks and an interim restraining order.
For the next fixture, it was back to the Moor the following week for the Jack Bloor race, a race which is traditionally won every year without fail by our own Jack Wood. In fact it was Jack Cummings who looked to be coming up trumps, leading the race until a slightly unsightly route choice scuppered his chances. As runners are free to choose their own path between checkpoints, it wouldn’t be strictly accurate to say that he went in the *wrong* direction, but he certainly didn’t go in the best direction as far as winning the race was concerned. Alas, Jack Wood was unable to overhaul new race leader Joe Woodley (Dark Peak), so for the first time in living memory WE DIDN’T WIN JACK.
Actually, not true – as well as a smattering of age group prizes for various Harriers, Emily Gibbins stormed to victory in the women’s race. As one of the few eligible runners to get a handicap bonus for being excessively young (good problem to have) she picked up over 100 points in her race league debut. If she starts turning up to more races, we may have to start researching non-alcoholic prize alternatives for the end-of-year awards.
An additional kick in the proverbials for Jack C was that Jeff Green – by dint of picking up his third V50 trophy in as many races – has nudged him out of the lead in the fell racing subdivision of our race league, the standings for which now sit thus after three races:
- Jeff Green (292.72 points)
- Jack Cummings (291.21 points)
- Nick Kealey (273.24 points)
With plenty of races left in the calendar, and most of them over very well marked courses, Jack should be in with a shout of reclaiming top spot.
Our final race of the month was the Cookridge Community Run, which is a multi-terrain 10k round Golden Acre Park and its environs. The headlines were a sixth place finish for Mike AC and a second place finish amongst the ladies for Brit Tate. As Mike is a male in the prime of life and thus doesn’t qualify for any kind of handicap bonus, and this is the first league race that Brit has bothered to lace up her shoes for, they haven’t caused a major splash in the league standings, but Pete Shelley – who scooped the V50 prize, now leads the trail running subdivision of the league:
- Pete Shelley (265.81 points)
- Nick Kealey (197.86 points)
- Kate Archer (197.64 points)
Both Kate and Nick have done one race fewer than Pete, so he won’t be investing in a new tin of silver polish just yet.
Jeff Green leads the league overall, but as devotees of the Eurovision Song Contest know, there’s a long way to go, it’s all up for grabs, and the scoring is opaque and laughably corrupt.
We have a glut of fixtures coming in the first week of June (Chevin Fell Race, Ilkley Trail, Wharfedale Trail Half), plus the Eccup 10 at the end of the month. Sadly, Settle Hills has been cancelled because of a low number of advance entries.
See all the fixtures, scores, and the fascinating history of the league on the race league page.