From Petra Bijsterveld…
Photo credit: Jonathan Hobbs
The Vale of York races, organised by Evensplits, have been based at Rufforth Airfield in the past. After three disrupted years they were at a new and slightly different venue, Woolley Edge Farm, still at Rufforth though. The same and yet completely different! Parking again was on one of the runways, but not the same one as previously, and this one was in a considerable state of disrepair. You certainly wouldn’t want to land a plane on it! Driving was tricky enough due to giant potholes. There was then a walk through the farm to race HQ which was situated on a, thankfully dry, grassy field. The farm yard did provide an added attraction of lots of super cute small calves with their mums, they all seemed very content munching their hay and more or less ignored us, as if the sight of hundreds of runners was an every day occurrence. The start and finish of the course consisted of about half a mile of unmade though compacted farm track (looked like it was awaiting concreting), which then changed to concrete and finally to road just before the end of the first mile. The less than perfect surface at the start and finish was a bit of a shock when we surveyed the course, at least to those of us who would be gunning for a fast time, but in practice it did not make a huge amount of difference perhaps. The roads were closed to traffic which made for safe running, and the weather was perfect, if perhaps a bit warm in the sun.
The 10 mile option of this race was most popular with more than 500 runners including 8 Harriers taking part. Ed Hobbs had a convincing win, having run the second half of his race entirely solo and he was a whole minute clear of the second finisher. Dan McKeown was 2nd M40 but felt somewhat frustrated to just be a few seconds over the 1 hour mark. Considering he had had a rather extended warm-up due to not being able to locate the start (so many runways to choose from….) and only arrived with seconds to spare before the (delayed) start I would say he did pretty well! Beth Massey and Helen Waddington ran fast runs and came 4th in their respective age categories. Tracey Watson ran with daughter Aphra Hicks, the latter had not run more than 10k previously so well done Aphra! Nice to see relatively new members Alan Travis and Sarah Lambert in the 10 mile race too.
The 5 mile option was new for this year and Leo Graham, Hilda Coulsey and myself tackled this with about 170 others. I had only entered a few days ago, having never run a 5 mile race I was keen to get a time for the distance and to simultaneously have a crack at the F60 club record held by Hilda. Along the same lines Hilda wanted to set the F70 club record for the distance. We succeeded in our respective quests, and also won the age category prizes (F55 and F65 – confused, you will be!). In addition Hilda had the highest age grading out of all the Harriers at 83.4%. The F60 record had been set by Hilda when aged 68, so I am still full of admiration for her as I am only just 60. Anyway, I am sure Alison Bennett will be along shortly to take several minutes off, so I don’t expect to be holding on to this for long!
10 M
1 54:41 Edward Hobbs
20 1:00:07 Dan McKeown 2nd M40
82 1:08:47 Beth Massey
148 1:15:53 Helen Waddington
284 1:27:35 Tracey Watson
286 1:27:35 Aphra Hicks
298 1:28:38 Alan Travis
466 1:52:27 Sarah Lambert
518 ran
5M
(1 25:25 Jordan Howe, York Postal Harriers)
23 33:11 Leo Graham
57 39:38 Petra Bijsterveld 1st F55
70 41:29 Hilda Coulsey 1st F65
172 ran