From Jill Ezard…
Podium and age category success for Harriers across the UK
It was a busy weekend for the Harriers with some outstanding performances on the trails. Saturday saw Jann Smith take on the challenging Ras Pedol Peris (Snowdon Horseshoe) in impressive style. It’s a challenging classic fell race requiring navigational skills and technical capability to tackle the nine peaks and the treacherous Y LLiwedd exposed ridge to the Snowdon summit. At 18 miles with 8500ft of climb the race would be challenging enough but add in poor visibility for most of the race, her time of 5:52 was outstanding. As the race was also the long race counter for the UK Athletics Fell and Hill Running Championships, Jann also bagged the bronze medal for her age category. Fantastic result!
Meanwhile, safely on home turf, 14 Harriers turned out for the 13km Rombalds Romp. Starting and finishing on Keighley Road, the race takes participants out past the Swastika Stone and up through the challenging terrain of the plantation, coming back over the moor before heading back down to the start. There were some cracking results: Michael Odell was the first Harrier home taking second place overall and first in his age category, completing the race in 55:27; Dan McKeown was next up in 1:02 followed closely by Dave Robson in 1:03:58 taking first place in his age category; Adrian Hall finished in 1:07:30 taking third place in his age category; the first female Harrier over the line was Natalie Curtis, taking first place in her age category in 1:24:57, followed seconds behind by Alison Bennett in 1:25:24, also taking first place in her age category; and Paul Stephens, completing the race in 1:28:26 was also another third place age category winner. A great clutch of results for the red and greens!
Meanwhile, looking for a change of scenery, Melanie Edwards headed to the capital to take part in the Vitality London 10k. Starting on the Mall, the route takes in Nelson’s column, St Paul’s Cathedral, and the Houses of Parliament before ending in front of Buckingham Palace. Melanie had a great run, completing the event in 1:03:51.
Sunday was back to Yorkshire with the multi-terrain Kirkstall Abbey 7, a mostly flat course starting and finishing within the spectacular grounds of Kirkstall Abbey. The route takes in riverside paths and the canal towpath as well as road and the grounds of the Abbey. Two Harriers, David Singleton and Matthew Snow, perhaps attracted by the bottle of beer for every finisher, put in great performances both finishing in the top five of their age categories in 51:34 and 53:57 respectively.
Despite being seen by some Harrier purists as cheating, using as it does two wheels and water to cover some of the ground, kudos must be given to the fantastic performances by lots of Harriers at the Ilkley Triathlon on Sunday with Christos Tzelis taking the outright win in a mind-blowing 54:25, over four minutes ahead of the second finisher! Alex Foyn came fifth, taking second place in his age category with Tim Ashelford also first in his age category. A great turnout!
And finally it was a small but very determined set of parkrunners that turned out on Saturday morning for events at home and abroad. Celebrating Personal Bests were Jonathan Sinclair at the Woodhouse Moor event and Matthew Thackwray at Fountains Abbey who was the first finisher in a blink-and-you-miss-it time of 15:41. Hitting some impressive age gradings were Mark Hall at Lister Park with 86.62% and Sally Armitage at Selby with 84.98% and finishing second female. Rob Cunningham had a great run out at Bedgebury Pinetum being the third finisher and Hilda Coulsey, still on the other side of the world, was the eighth female finisher at the Hamilton Island event. Some fantastic achievements to celebrate. Well done to all that took part.