National X-Country Championships
The England National Cross-Country Championships took place last Saturday in Sunderland. It was great to have some representation in this event with Andy Rose and Rob Norman wearing the club vest in the Senior Men’s race. On a day which was icy cold our runners recorded excellent times over the 12k course.
Andy finished in 59mins 15secs while Rob finished in 63mins 54secs. Congratulations to both runners and for having the motivation to travel that distance on a bitterly cold day to compete in such a tough event.
Club Championship
On the 1st of April the club will be starting a Club Championship which is open to all members of Belper Harriers.
The idea being that it will hopefully encourage more of our members to participate in both club races and local races. There will be various categories, at this stage the number has not been finalised, from one mile through to the Marathon. Fell Races and Cross-Countries will be included in the categories as well as Road Running. Points will be accumulated firstly by taking part in a race then extra points if you have run a time which is good for your gender or age. It would not be necessary to have to run in all the categories but it would certainly improve your chances of success if you did.
Dave Horton has been working on this to provide a format which will enable our members to accumulate points regardless of how fast they are or whatever age they are. A number of us have been given an introduction and by the beginning of next month we should be ready for the rush of races in the Spring. More information will be available in the next few weeks.
Bob Graham Round
Over the Spring Bank Holiday weekend at the end of May, Saul Taylor and Graham Collins will be taking up the Challenge around the Lake District. You may think what is the Bob Graham Round. It is basically a route over and around 42 peaks and 74 miles of running within 24 hours. The start and finish is at Keswick where they will be camping and as the name suggests, Bob Graham was the founder. There is a website where a lot more information can be obtained.
This is not going to be an easy task for the lads, so if any of our members or anyone reading this article is free for a weekend in the Lake District, to help in various ways they would be most welcome. The Lake District can be fantastic, so if you are interested in joining their team either running some miles, driving, helping with provisions on the route or just going up to support, get in touch with Saul on a Tuesday club night or email him on saul_d_taylor@hotmail.com.
Club Subscriptions
The club’s subs are now due for 2013-14 which once again remain at £15. Of this £10 goes to England Athletic Association, which has increased from £5. This payment is for insurance purposes and if you run in races which are affiliated by the EAA you get a £2 reduction per race. If you wish to pay by BACS transfer you will have to contact Rob Norman for the relevant numbers. Otherwise you can pay by cheque or cash to Rob Pearce, Pete Kemp or myself.
Vests
We shall be ordering a fresh consignment of running vests, so if you require one or wish to replace your existing one let one of us know on a Tuesday evening. We are not sure of prices but will endeavour to keep the price as low as possible.
10k Training Handicap
Once again we will be changing the date of the next Handicap. It was originally set for Tuesday March 19th but David Denton has his 5k and 1mile races on the following evening. So as not to clash with David’s race, as a number of our runners would probably wish to run both but not on successive nights, we shall now run the last winter Handicap on Tuesday March 26th.
Specials Co-ordinator
Geoff Stone has kindly volunteered to act as the Co-ordinator for this years Specials. The dates for the Specials should be on the website in the next week, when we will be looking for volunteers to organise one of the six Specials.
Thanks Malc