Harriers Field Two Teams at Lee Mill Relays
Late November always means one thing for road racers, namely the Blackburn 10K on a twisting course taking in the sights of Blackburn town centre before finishing at Ewood Park. Three Harriers took it on amongst the 1,800 who did, with Joe Horrocks coming 25th out of all finishers in a fast 35:09, Richard O’Reilly came 5th in the V55 category in 41:34 and Graham Schofield came 6th in the V65 category as well as in the top third of the field overall in 48:26.
O’Reilly had a pretty busy time as he also competed at the Hyrox event in Madrid earlier in the week. A Hyrox event consists of 8 one-kilometre runs followed by eight workouts after each run. These workouts at the Madrid event were, in order, a 1000m SkiErg, a sled push, then a sled pull, burpee broad jumps, a 1km row on a rowing machine, the farmer’s carry, sandbag lunges and lastly, the wall balls. After previously doing one with a partner a couple of weeks ago, this one was a solo event and O’Reilly powered through everything in 1:26:13, coming 8th out of 35 in his age group.
Out on the fells, a couple of Horwich teams took on the Lee Mill Relays in Rossendale, which took place at Lee Mill Quarries on a hilly, demanding 10.7km route with 87 teams of four runners completing it. Dan Gilbert fancied doing it twice for the men’s A team also consisting of James Titmuss and Julian Goudge with the three of them coming home 10th in a combined time of 3:50:09. A Horwich RMI Vets team also finished in 25th, comprising Gary Chadderton, Adam MacDonald, Chris Essex-Crosby and Marcus Taylor and coming home in a total time of 4:13:31 whilst the women also sent a team up. Samantha Sale, Helen MacDonald, Tara van Delm and Isaline Kneale finished the course in a combined 5:05:43.
There wasn’t too much travelling for parkrun this time around. Isaac Parker and Milly Lever wandered out of the region for their parkrun fixes, Parker at his usual haunt of Coldham’s Common in Cambridge, finishing in a fine 19:30 whilst Lever took on Trentham Gardens parkrun near Stoke-on-Trent and stopped the clock in 23:17. Harry Yates and Rob Jackson continued their rivalry at Peel with the younger Yates coming through in a personal best time of 17:55 on that course, Jackson ran 18:48, winning his age category and clocked an age grading over 85% whilst doing so. Jason Middleton ran Alexandra parkrun in Moss Side in just under 25, whipping out his barcode after 24:51. Ava Winstanley was first lady home at Burnley in 20:25 whilst Robert Seddon was second at Bolton in 19:38. Oliver Hughes was the sole Harrier at Pennington Flash and broke 29 minutes, finishing in 28:51, Marcus Taylor and Chris Charnley were at Witton, running 20:42 and 23:38 respectively whilst four were at Haigh as Richard O’Reilly did 21:57, Paul Wilcockson not too far behind in 22:34, Mary White got home in 28:21 and Gillian Smith finished the course in 53:56.
