I’m not an expert on the origins of Easter but any religious festival with lightly toasted and heavily buttered sweet bakery products from the friday (and on through the long weekend) and various chocolate products from the Sunday, all within a four day weekend, is up there on my list of great religious festivals. Unlike Christmas, there is the added …
The 20 Mile Season of Misery
The Berko half always, in my mind at least, signals the transition from the “Races I always enjoy” season (Fred Hughes 10, Watford Half, Berko Half, muddy cross country races) to the 20 Mile Season (which only those actually doing a marathon take part in). Regular readers of this column will know that I, for one, thoroughly disenjoy 20 mile …
GVH Women at the Double
There was a slightly curious piece of scheduling over the weekend of 10th / 11th February as the final Chiltern League Cross Country fixture of the season took place in Oxford on Saturday while the February club league race took place on Sunday at the Love Welwyn 10k. Fortunately, GVH had built up a large cushion over their relegation rivals …
Hairy Outing for Fred Hughes
The early months of the year follow a fairly predictable pattern for many local runners as marathon training kicks in for some and the pattern of popular local races attracts both marathon and non marathon runners alike. After round 4 of the Chiltern League last weekend, another local race, the ever popular Fred Hughes 10 (mile) saw a large number …
Many Happy Returns!
It’s been a while. A cursory glance at the Latest News page on the club website shows that the last time a weekly report was written, it was also a cross country weekend, back at the start of December in Luton. What happened since? Well, there was the Milton Keynes Winter Half on December 10th, a load of Parkruns, the …
Women Show up Men at Cross Country Again
Saturday 2nd December saw the third match of the Chiltern League Cross Country season at Stopsley Common, just outside Luton. As usual for a cross country weekend, the attendance at Parkruns was much reduced. Oddly Vince Ellerby wasn’t seen at a Parkrun for the second consecutive week, at the time of writing it is unknown why he didn’t make his …
Vince in No Parkrun Shocker
The weekend of 25th and 26th November saw the latest round in the GVH Club League take place at the Hatfield 5 on Sunday. This is a 5 mile race over a quick course that starts and finishes at the University of Hertfordshire and shares almost half of its route with the popular St Albans Easter 10k. The race website …
Dirty Harriers
From time to time there are quiet weeks in the year. Most of them happen in the summer when it is just too hot to bother with racing but you get them in the winter too. On those occasions it can be important to dig into the bank of possible puns and come up with something. With that in mind …
No Toilets at Teardrops
The weekend of 11th and 12th November was a Chiltern Cross Country League weekend and, as is usually the case, the Saturday cross country fixture dominated the weekend for GVH. There were still a handful of Gade Valley athletes at various local parkruns. A much reduced cohort of 7 were at Rickmansworth where club chairman Andy Cook took advantage of …
Helen Cook in Bad Admin Shocker
On 28th October the club’s monthly Parkrun tour took a short trip to Verulam Park for the St Albans Parkrun. A strong turnout for the club saw nearly 40 Harriers taking on the course and the club filled the first three finisher places. New member Andy Law was first finisher, in 18:32m, with Michael Linden only 4 seconds back in …