Harriers Scoop Vet Prizes Across Fells and Road
Several Harriers made the short trip to the village of Pendleton, near Clitheroe, to take on the Pendleton Fell Race last weekend. This relatively short five-mile race crams in 1500ft of ascent during its course but it didn’t stop Dan Gilbert and Danny Hope coming home in 5th and 6th place respectively, Gilbert taking the first V50 in 41:23 and Hope taking the first V40 in 43:11. Adrian Bramham nearly made it a hat-trick of veteran age classification victories, coming in as second V60 in 46:01. Further afield in the fields, Susanne Budgett continued her return to racing up in the Lake District at the Keswick Show Barrow Fell Race. This was arguably even tougher, cramming in nearly 1400ft of ascent in 6.5km and Budgett scampered around in 56:19.
Budgett’s clearly revelling in her return as a few days before that, she went out on the roads for her first road race in 15 years when she took on the flat Hoad Hill Harriers 10K. The absence from the roads clearly didn’t have an impact as she took first V60 and was indeed 29th female out of 85 as she came home in just over 50 minutes, clocking 50:08. Gareth Webb put some recent lower back and foot troubles behind him to take first V65 at the Monton 5-mile road race, showing the class expected of a six-time England Masters international runner in the process in tough, sunny conditions to come 56th in a field of over 500, finishing in 34:46 and over two minutes ahead of his nearest rival in his age group.
A small team of juniors were found at Trafford with two running personal bests. Lily Mort managed the feat with 14.03 in the 100m, Amelia Green ran a season’s best of 13.85 over the same distance and Winnie Lancaster got a personal best over 800m in a time of 2:30.81. Louis Yates, Joel Ige and Beatrice Green also competed well with Yates taking second in the 800m.
The various parkruns saw a sprinkling of Harriers getting in their speed training. International appearance of the week went to Joe Mercer, who wasn’t just content with being the only one to run abroad, he came first at Reeuwijkse Hout parkrun, almost equidistant between Rotterdam and Utrecht in the Netherlands and definitely one of the tougher parkruns to spell correctly, finishing nearly 90 seconds of the second placed finisher in 17:02. Isaac Parker scampered around Coldham’s Common in Cambridge in 19:19, whilst Simon Bruton tackled Rothay Park’s course in Ambleside one second quicker. Brendan Bolland and Oliver Hughes popped up on the other side of the Lakes at Keswick, running 26:32 and 28:36 respectively. The Middletons went to Ormskirk where Jason did 23:48 whereas Janet did 31:19. Harry Yates and Rob Jackson spent their time at Peel trying to beat each other, Yates coming out on top by five seconds in 18:21, whilst evergreen Tony Hesketh ran 28:48 and Steve Jackson did 32:57. Gordon Stone just missed the sub-30 mark at Worden, Richard Pollitt clocked a rapid 17:44 at Alexandra and only two went to Haigh Woodland this time out as Nick Kelly got home in 20:26 and Gillian Smith did 37:31. Paul Murray did 41:08 at Witton, Georgia Heath did 21:04 at Worsley Woods and fellow roving press reporter Richard O’Reilly did 21:29 at Heaton Park.
