Thanks to Dave Horton for this update and write up…
Club Champs – Intro
Are you aware of the Harriers’ Club Championships? There are plenty of races to choose from, over fell and road, and you can find the full list of races on our website. The first two races of the road champs have been and gone; the Leicestershire Half marathon, and the Derby 10k. The list this year focusses on 10K, which are accessible to all, and there are plenty of local ones, helping us all to reduce travel time and carbon impact. Remember that any two of the Tuesday evening league races also count, and any marathon of your choice. The scoring for each championship is different; for the road champs, the score is calculated by comparing your time to the race winner, and then age-graded. As we use the ‘chip time’, then it doesn’t matter if you start well back from the front line.
Derby 10k Race Write up
The Derby 10k this year was held over a revised course, removing the rather boring section around the back of Costco. The route winds through the streets of Derby, as before, but now takes us along the fast and picturesque river-side path, with a final flourish around the Pride Park stadium. The change of route led to an unfortunate measuring error, so we all ended up with PBs on the 9.55Km course. No doubt it’ll be sorted next year, so we’ll all have a great target to chase – to try and beat our 2026 time! We had nine Harriers chasing championship points this year – Liz Griffiths, Zach Naylor, Adam Robinson, Tom Jackson, Keith Chandler, Phil Butt, Keely Allen, me, and Ostinas.
With Tom Jackson far in front of the rest of us (34:05), I thought I’d got an easy 2nd place. However, I’d not anticipated Adam Robinson’s flying finish. Just as I rounded the final corner of the stadium, a blur of yellow and black shot past me as what felt like twice my speed. In my defence, I’d let my mind wander to the subject of how we were going to squeeze 450 metres out of the last 100m. That lack of focus allowed Adam to pass me with ease. This highlights one of the beauties of road running; it’s you against the course, and I’d let the course distract me when it really mattered. Lesson learned. Aside from the weather, there’s little that you can’t control in a road race, so it becomes a test of your training, preparation, and your ability to concentrate on your pace.
For those of us training for a spring marathon, the Ashby 20 (mile) at the weekend was an important race, as it provides a long race a few weeks before the Big One. It’s not on the club champs this year, but it’s still worthy of note. This year there were just three of us, Rob Pearce (a regular at this race), Mark Pickard, and me. It’s a tough course, with little of it flat. If you can run this one at your target marathon pace, then you stand a chance of maintaining the same pace over a longer, flatter marathon course. That’s my theory anyway.
Aside from that, it’s a fantastic event. It’s organised by a running club, rather than a corporation, and it shows. The bag drop is staffed by the local scouts, who made a splendid job of it, and the post-run sandwiches were made by the WI, and reportedly delicious. The marshalling was perfect, and the support around the route, through the villages was enthusiastic. Most of the roads were closed, and they’d taken the opportunity to have legions of helpers patrolling the verges filling bags with all the detritus that gets discarded from vehicles.
My usual complaint after road races is the number of discarded water bottles and gel tubes left by inconsiderate runners. Clearly, the visible efforts to tidy the route had an effect on the less well-behaved sections of the entrants, who seemed to comply with the good example set. Even during the second lap, I only saw one dropped gel on the road, yet saw dozens of bags of other people’s rubbish that had been cleared as a direct result of this event. What better example of how a race can contribute to society.
Even if you’re not planning a 2027 spring marathon, have a think about entering this one next year.
Next up in the club road champs is the Holymoorside 10K on 10th May. Entries are still open. It’s organised by the local scouts, so it’s yet another race where your race fee goes straight to a local voluntary organization. See you there!