Sutton 6 10K, Ladies' relays, Four Villages

[STEVE LOMAS]

Dear All,

Sunday saw the final race of this year’s Cheshire Grand Prix series with the Sutton 6 10K, based at the village of Guilden Sutton, near Chester.

The race is very organised by West Cheshire AC. The course is quite undulating but there were still some very fast times produced by a high class field of men and lady runners drawn from across the North-West, North Midlands and North Wales.

The full results are here;
http://www.ukresults.net/2011/sutton6.html

Some Harriers’ took the opportunity to compete in the race and then visit Chester in the afternoon.

We were, though, quite sparsely represented but the performances produced helped to make it a successful end to the GP season with some Harriers’ deservedly winning awards for their fine efforts this season which also helped the Club to finish high in the Grand Prix table.

James Noakes carried on with his superb run of performances and finished 10th in a field that contained most of Cheshire’s - and the wider region - best runners. This ensured that he finished in an overall fourth place in the final individual men’s Grand Prix table. Further, he was awarded the title - and some prize money - of overall first vet in the final table.

Andrew Lamont, though not running on Sunday, finished as runner-up in the Grand Prix table behind the winner, Damian Nicholls of Wilmslow RC.

Chris Harbron ensured that he would also finish high in the individual table with another good race here.

Phil Shering has made a great contribution in representing the Club throughout the season and ran a season’s best 10K which ensured a high overall finish in the individual GP table.

Mark Walker and Chris Bentley, both unavailable at Sutton, are also very well placed in the final individual GP table.

All the regular and consistent performances above have led to the Harriers’ finishing either 3rd or 4th in the GP team table of all Cheshire’ s best clubs’ – final place to be confirmed.

The Club is considering employing the Club Statistician, Rachael Lawrance, in a full-time role so that Colin Ardron’s record breaking runs can be properly kept up to date. Colin smashed his own, recently set, M65 10K record in Sunday’s race.

The ladies’ team are still nursing several injuries between them and, additionally, the ladies’ competed as a team in the North West Road Relays on Saturday and so some were unavailable for Sunday’s race.

Iona Cummings was the only lady representative today but she again showed the huge improvement she has made in her running races - and triathlons - this year.

A summary of the main results at Guilden Sutton are here;

Overall race winner; Tarus Elly of Salford Harriers, 31:40
Overall ladies’ race winner (and first lady vet); Michelle Ross-Cope, 34:01
Overall first vet (men); Stuart Doyle of Vale Royal AC, 33:31

Harriers’ results are as follows;
James Noakes, 34:08 (10th place and 2nd M40)
Steve Lomas, 41:15
Chris Harbron, 41:25
Philip Shering, 43:18
Iona Cummings, 45:53 (17th lady and new pb)
Colin Ardron, 46:00 (first M65 and new Club M65 record)

The next Club Champs race is the Congleton Half Marathon which is familiar to many Harriers’. Despite its trademark tag of the ‘Sting in the Tail’ (which signifies a short, steep hill at 12 miles) it is quite a fast course where many Harriers’ in the past have set pbs’. It gives the chance for our Club to produce a good team performance.

There is NO ENTRY on the day, and entry is by online only, here;
http://www.ukresults.net/11oct.html#congleton

Entries will open early next month for next January’s Four Villages Half Marathon, which is based around the town of Helsby and some neighbouring villages, in West Cheshire, a very well-known race for many Harriers’. If the weather is suitable at that time of year, then the course is one of of the fastest in the region. Though the race normally caters for around 2,000 entrants, the available places fill up very quickly well before race day.

Please look out for the entry details on the Helsby Running Club website;
http://www.helsbyrunningclub.org.uk/halfmarathon/

As mentioned above, the ladies fielded a team in Saturday’s North West Road Relay Championship at Sefton Park in Liverpool.

The team of Sarah Harris, Barbara Murray and Rachel Pleeth finished in an excellent 15th place amongst some very high ranking north-west clubs.

The full results are here;
http://www.noeaa-athletics.org.uk/FileU ... s_2011.pdf

There was one Macclesfield member at the Boggart Chase 10K multi-terrain race which also took place on Sunday;

Alan Webster, 52:48 (8th M50).

The full results are here;
http://www.ukresults.net/2011/bogg10k.html

Please note the results of another local race from last Sunday (11/09) involving a Club member;

Woodford 10K (multi-terrain)
Doug Hughes, 55:18 (8th M50).

The full results are here;
http://woodford10k.com/entry/results.html

Best regards,
Steve