Crowning glory!!!
While many runners worry that the spring marathon they’ve trained long and hard for may now be postponed there are still races to be run and prizes to be competed for. The last race in this year’s Derby Runner Cross Country Series (Derby/Staffs) at Sinai Park, Burton on Trent on Sunday saw a clean sweep of the series team trophies by the Club with Abbey Van Dijk, Chris Pearson, Mark Harriott and Andy Orme also securing well deserved individual and age group prizes. Abbey Van Dijk continues to go from strength to strength and 6 days after winning the 1st women’s prize at the Leicester Half Marathon was representing Derbyshire at Prestwold Hall in the Inter Counties Cross Country Championship. Against the best runners in the country Abbey was first Derbyshire runner home and a very respectable 73rd overall.
At the far from gentle Sinai Park Gareth Watkins, making a really welcome return to competitive action for the Club, was 2nd in the men’s race with Rich Miller, Seb Van Dijk, Chris Hanman and Mark Harriott all putting in outstanding performances to finish in 4th, 8th, 10th and 11th places respectively. Sam Bassett, slowly getting back to his best form, finished in 23rd with the fast starting Mikey Walters in 30th and Andy Alsop in 31st completing the men’s team finishers. Men’s Club Captain, Andy Orme collected the 33rd place token with Matt Long in 36th, Hector Arenas in 46th, Ross Ballinger in 47th and Dave Green in 53rd completing the Club’s finishers in the men’s race.
The Club’s women were led home by an excellent performance from Chrissie Hawtin in 4th place with Katie Dennis in 6th, Tracey Glover in 13th and women’s Club Captain, Lisa Wright in 14th completing another outstanding team performance. Becky Lenaghan in 27th, Emma Sharp in 39th, Sarah Walters in 47th and Julianne Walters in 63rd completed the Club’s finishers in the women’s race and rounded off an excellent season in what has probably been one of the wettest, windiest winters on record.
Ross Clarke, training hard for the Manchester Marathon, smashed his 10k PB in the Fradley 10k with 36:35 for 17th place out of 990 finishers. At the same race Shannon Hurdman continued her improvement with an excellent 56:44 with Richard Gee and Jerome Jones recording 61:19 and 78:34 respectively. Colin Mee continued his return to racing with a hard run 01:40.40 in the Retford Half Marathon while Tim Rhodes, another tackling a spring marathon, continued his build up with 43.35 for an excellent 9th place finish in the Burghley 7. John Morgan and Pauline Cooper were in action at the very challenging Kibworth 6, with John recording an excellent 40:38 with currently no official finishing times available. Steve Leafe and Robin Thorne tackled the 10 mile version of the Cannock Trail Race, which had previously been postponed, because of bad weather, earlier in winter. Both ran good, solid races recording 82:57 and 103:17 respectively. Sophie Anne Pickett and Amy Brookes tackled the 5 mile version and both ran with distinction recording very respectable times of 47:25 and 57:49.
Last but definitely not least Chris Baxter was in action in Wales where he ran superbly to win the Wrexham 10 in a new Club record of 55:48.
