Last Handicap of the Season
The final 10k Handicap of the winter was run on Tuesday evening with twenty-four runners going off their allotted handicap time and four other runners having a run on the course, either coming back from injury or having run at the weekend. The calm early spring like weather helped to produce some good times from our runners. The winner on the evening was Rachel Clark who coming back from a long-term injury ran well to take the winners trophy until October. The fastest time on the night was Ed James in 37mins 50secs who along with Shaun Bott running his first Handicap, a mere six seconds slower. Joining them in producing sub 40 minute runs were Simon Lloyds and Ron Ilsley. Three other runners made their Handicap debuts, Tracey Morley-Dukes, Rob Wadey and Simon Swanborough and I am sure all three must have been well pleased with their performances.
Well done to everyone who ran and thanks to Georgina Bestwick and Jo Southcott for the recording and time-keeping.
Over the six Handicaps there have been some significant and improving performances which hopefully our runners will put into races over the coming weeks.
Thanks to everyone who supported the Handicaps, also to Chris and Tom Jackson for their prompt entry of the results and to Alan for getting them on the website as soon as they were available.
Finally thanks to Steve and his staff at the Devonshire for the food and the hospitality over the winter.
Harriers in Action
The spring is here and the races are getting more plentiful with three races last Sunday where our runners were in action.
The Fradley 10k race took place just off the A38 near to Litchfield with six of our runners in the field of nearly 900 runners. Although this race has received a good reputation over the years for being a good fast course and well organised, this year there was a problem with the results. Some of the official times for our runners were not correct which is a travesty for a high profile race, considering how much it costs to run in this type of event. The basics we should receive, are that the course is the correct distance, there are sufficient marshals and runners get their correct time from the race.
Anyway from various conversations with some of the runners, the six of Jack Dakin, Andy Rose, Rob Norman, Ed James, Robin Clegg and Gary Knights all produced good times from their unofficial time-keeping.
Getting a long race in before a marathon is always a good idea and this is what Steph Ilsley and Mark Riches did in preparation for the London Marathon. Steph and Mark both ran the Stafford 20 mile race last Sunday with Steph recording 2hrs 29mins while Mark running 2hrs 32mins. Good times and if you could keep that up for the extra six miles there would be two good marathon times.
Relatively new recruit Tim Boursnell was in action in North Nottinghamshire running the Retford Half-marathon. Coming home in 164th place out of 450 runners, Tim recorded a time of 1hr 43mins for a very creditable performance.
At the beginning of the month, Chris Jackson traveled down to Milton Keynes to run in their half-marathon and it was well worth the journey, as Chris ran a personal best. Chris recorded a time of 1hr 46mins to beat his previous best for the distance by two minutes.
Great to see our runners in action producing some good times, so if you run anywhere a bit different, regardless of what type of race, drop me an email with your time etc to help keep the race reports in progress.