Two Teams of Harriers Navigate The Fell Relays
Following last week’s European travels, the Red Vest could again be seen crossing the international borders of Spain and Wales. Matt Smith finished an excellent 7th (1:17:35) battling the course and race commentator at the Palma half where conditions looked lovely. The Welsh weather known for being somewhat less benign could definitely have provided much worse at the UKA British Fell & Hill Relay Championship held at Dinas Mawaddy. Here the Harriers were out in such force they fielded an A and B team. Team A (Adrian Bramham, Marcus Taylor, Adam McDonald, Julian Goudge, Dan Gilbert and Danny Hope) completed the course in 3:51:00 (placing 11th in the Vet 40 category) whilst Team B (Sam Fairhurst, Alison Mort, Helen McDonald, Lindsay Brindle and father and son duo James and Mark Titmuss) crossed the line in 4:18:47 (placing 6th in the Mixed Open category).
Richard O’Reilly and teammate Gary Fellows participated in their 1st Men’s Double Hyrox event at Birmingham. Also known as a compromised running challenge, Hyrox is an increasingly popular global fitness race designed to test strength, endurance and functional fitness comprising 8 rounds of an alternating format of 1km runs with cross fit stations such as rowing, lunges, burpees, sled pulls / pushes and the infamous wall balls in between. At the time of writing, the pair currently head the standings in the Vet55 category despite having a disaster on the wall balls (for those in the know, a shocking 8 minutes 23 seconds) which ruined their overall time of 1:14:02 but gives scope for vast improvment.
Three lads raced the Trafford 10k yielding some very quick times. Lead Harrier was Tom Rigby who was 93rd in 33:41 followed by Alex Lowe 102nd (33:52) and club XC Captain and triathlon man Ryan Snee 120th in 34:28. After entering 7 marathons over far too many years but never getting to the start line, it was 8th time lucky for Kev Newall at the York marathon. Newall completed this gruelling task in 3:39:51.
In the weekly round up of Park Run, Steve Jackson ran a 30:24 for 168th place at Harrow. Elsewhere Ellie Leach was 373rd (36:41) at Preston, Gordon Stone 185th (28:44) at Worsley Woods, Suzanne Budgett 74th (23:24) at Penrith, Dominic McKenna 57th (23:18 at Conwy, Richard O’Reilly 8th (20:11) at Haigh Hall, Thomas Massey 6th (18:03) at Stretford, Brendan Bolland 50th (27:38) at Frederic Back, Harry Yates was 7th dipping sub 18 (17:56) with Rob Jackson 11th (18:27) at Peel, Jack Harmand was 11th (19:55), Linda Webb 95th (25:46) and Michael Salmon 96th (25:47) at Leyland’s Worden Park and last but not least Isaac Parker 31st and another in the sub 20 club with a 19:39 time at Brooks Ley.
