Created by : Tom Shaw On : Mon, 10/07/2024 - 13:35
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Nearly off-road action this week as our Juniors and Seniors had some brilliant runs whether short, long, solo or in a team!
We start at Berry Hill for the Notts School XC with some fantastic runs from our young athletes. In Y10/11 Miley Townrow bagged a podium in 2nd whilst dropping down a year group to Y8/9 Henry Marks finished 29th in the boys with a solid run in a big field whilst Holly Bulmer scored great in the girls in 22nd.
Down one more year and more podiums incoming as in the Y5/6 girls, Aya St Juste year 5/6 finished 3rd, whilst in the Boys George North bagged 2nd, followed by Oakley Allsop (21st) and Myles Hall shortly behind.
Also not missing on the mentions, earlier in the week young Hugo McCarthy also ran in a year 3/4 cross country coming 2nd in a field of 36 , winning an individual silver medal and overall team award!
On the Senior side this weekend and it was dominated by long distance though not necessarily by individuals as the Round Rotherham Run took place as Harriers were running in both 8-person relay teams or solo in the full 50 mile/3000+ of elevation gain and self-navigated trails. Starting early in the morning the solo runners got a head start as they make their way out from Manvers Water over through Kimberworth, the reservoirs of Treeton and Rother Valley before looping back through Harthill, Woodsetts, (passing just by Worksop!) and then back through Langold, Maltby, Hooton Roberts and eventually back to Manvers with several Harriers conquering their longest run to date. David Bulmer was first back in 11:19:53 whilst James Morgan and David Firth made their way round together, caming in 12:51:08. Just 40 minutes later and Round Rotherham veteran Kerry Dickinson completed another edition in 13:28:37
That wasn't it for the RRR action however as splitting the course in to 8 sections of roughly 4-10 miles, the course also has a relay option with runners running point to point before handing over the metaphorical baton with team prizes at stake for the Open (Majority Male), Female and Mixed categories and it was dual success for the Harriers as they took 1st prize in both the Open and Ladies Category. Starting at 8 am behind the solo runners, Hannah Miller got the ladies team underway whilst Matt Daly Led both the Open and the entire field as both runners set us up to be in the lead from the start. Sam Marriott and Dom Fielding handed over from stage 2 to 3 for Madi Spencer and Henry Brady whilst Gabs Bower and Adam Jonczyk took us to half way as runners passed near to Workop. Stage 5 headed from Woodsetts to Firbeck as Julie Holloway and Matt Chappell took over, handing over to Leah Smith and Chris Johnson for Stage 6, Rachel Silcock and Bryan Cherry for stage 7 before Cathy Mhembere brought the ladies home in 7:20:37, 1st ladies team and 6th team overall. Tom Shaw led the open team in with a total time of 5:51:52 to seal the open team victory. That still wasn't it for the RRR as another Harriers team joined in in the mixed category as with Steve Battle getting his speed back after his recent 6 day challenge, on to Richard Hind, Another returning ultra runner of Sally Hamer, Jim Staveley, Trev Symcox, Faryal Bradley/Alice Chaw-Phillips, Peter Spencer and Sharon James finished 12th from 26 in 7:57:21
That wasnt it for long distance trails this weekend either as on Sunday at Sherwood Pines was the Rasselbock 6 hour challenge. 6 hours for runners to complete as many complete 5.79 km laps as they can, with the winner being those who complete the most complete laps in the lowest total time. Sam Thorneloe racked himself up a nice half marathon (4 laps) in 2:50:30 whilst Sam Marriott completed 6 laps (34.72 km) in 5:02:03 with Kate Thornloe getting some BYU practice in with the same distance in 4:21:11. Pushing the event right to its end and it was very nearly a Harriers 1-2-3 is Paul Parry completed 10 laps (57.9 km) 5:22:48, and 4th on time whilst Paul Marriott and taking gold was Aidrian Hopkinson as the only two on the day to take 11 laps, 63.7 km and a time of 5:47:07 for Aidy whilst Paul pushing the event timing right to the edge in 5:59:37
Making the distance look almost short by comparison but just as impresivve this week and Autumn Marathon season got underway as Chris Bliss was in search of a Marathon PB at Chester. A challenging undulating course, but Chris capatilised on a great year of performances as he ran 3:17:43, grabbing not only a club bronze standard to continue the year of success but also a huge PB of nearly 25 minutes.