From Jill Ezard and Nicola Budding…
Quiet racing week as holidays start!
The start of the summer holidays saw limited racing. Wednesday saw the sixth race in the Evensplits Leeds 5k series at the University of Leeds Brownlee Centre. The races take place monthly from February to November and, with chip timing, allow participants to measure their improvement month by month. Four Harriers entered the race with some impressive results. Matthew Thackwray took second place, first in his age category, in 15:02, hitting a superb age grading of 89.4%. James Horrex was the second Harrier to finish in 18:01 followed by Kyle Bethell in 19:21. Harry Sime completed the event in 20:20 taking third place in his age category.
On the fells on Sunday Adela Reperecki was the only Harrier to take on the Denholm Doddle. The Doddle is a challenge walk and trail running event formerly known as the Harden Hard’un. It follows almost the same 27 mile route but now starts and finishes in the village of Denholme. Half of the route is on open moorland with outstanding views. It passes Top Withins (Wuthering Heights) and other well-known beauty spots in the Brontë Country. There are three distances that both walkers and runners can tackle: 27 miles, 21 miles or 17 miles with a generous time limit for all distances of 11.5 hours. Despite being injured Adela tackled the 17 mile event and completed in 5:14.
Further afield, Jaysson Sawyer took on the Northumberland Coastal Run. This c14 mile run goes through an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty along the Northumberland coastal path from Beadnell Harbour to Alnmouth Estuary, keeping as close to the coast as possible. The route starts on sand, then onto road, sand, trail, road and finishes on sand at Alnmouth. A challenging race, which seemed to suit Jaysson who completed the race in 1:29:14 taking ninth place overall and first in his age category!
At least our parkrunners were still out in force and clearly taking no rest on their holidays with events as far flung as Gdansk in Poland, Hockgraben in Germany and Malmö in Sweden. And there were some notable personal achievements. Several Harriers top ten finishers including Steve Bysouth fourth at Chevin Forest, Jane McCarthy fourth at Harrogate, Mark Hall second at Lister Park, Steve Coy fifth at Nostell, Caroline Howe seventh at Skipton and Jaysson Sawyer fourth at The Pastures in Northumberland. There was clearly something in the air at Roberts park were Sam Angus, Junior Harrier Harry Leijssen, Maddie Morris and Roar Leijssen all achieved Personal Bests. And some eye watering age gradings for Jane McCarthy (80.74%) and Mark Hall (88.63%). And clearly the conditions were just right for Jack Wood in Germany where he achieved the hattrick of being the first finisher, achieving a PB and hitting an over 80% age grading! Well done to all that took part particularly our other juniors Max Hebbron, Lily and Pippa Singleton and Megan Snow who we look forward to seeing continue to grow with the club.