The week to 26th June was something of a back to front affair for Gade Valley Harriers as it started on Tuesday June 21st with 40 Harriers taking part in the annual Summer Solstice 10k race in St Albans and finished with a similar number of Harriers getting drunk at the annual summer party on Saturday evening. Needless to say there was little in the way of competitive racing on Sunday.

The Summer Solstice run is a fast 10k race that starts and finishes in Highfield Park in St Albans before heading out towards Hatfield on the Alban Way, an old railway repurposed as a walking and cycling path (and hence very flat), a quick loop around a housing estate before returning on the Alban Way to Highfield Park. The race starts at 8:00PM on the evening of the summer solstice so can either provide some very fast times, if the weather is benign, or some slightly more challenging conditions if the weather is hot (as it was this year) or wet (as it was last year). 

Where are all the others hiding?

On balance most people agreed that last year’s wet conditions (which makes the start and finish in the park difficult) are preferable to this year’s hot conditions (which makes everything hard work). Nonetheless there were still some exceptionally fast times from the 40 Harriers who took part. Leading home the GVH runners, as is so often the case, was Matt Ashby. He continued his excellent improvements by scoring a new Personal Best and finishing 7th overall in 35:51. Michael Linden was the other Harrier to break the 40 minute barrier on the day, finishing 16th overall and 5th in his age category, in 38:42.

Not even breaking sweat…

Not far behind the leading pair were a couple of GVH men who have suffered recently from long term injuries. Stu Gallagher has suffered from a knee issue for almost a year now. Running last year’s London Marathon before it fully healed probably didn’t do it any favours, but he is now feeling fully un-injured (if not fully fit) and managed a more than respectable 40:00. Anthony Willcox has been injured in various different ways since before the pandemic started (although the two events aren’t related) so it is great to see him completing a 10k race at all, never mind in 41:30. Head coach Ed Price, club captain Andy Wells and Gwyn Pritchard all completed the race under 43 minutes. 

Looking good

Next over the line for the Harriers was Merlin Allan. In recent months Merlin and Robert Bowler have been locked in battle to claim (and then break) the club’s V60 records. As it stood before Monday, Merlin held 3 records, Robert held 2 and Anthony Fogden’s 10 mile mark seems to be in grave jeopardy. Despite the rivalry between the two, the Solstice was the first race that saw the pair head to head. Merlin came out on top finishing in 42:56, scoring a mighty 78.22 (out of 100) age graded points, and taking the club 10k record from Robert who finished just outside his existing record a few places back in 44:38. Merlin was seen leaving the race in Robert’s car and is rumoured not to have been seen since.

Have you seen this man?

Phil Mercer, Andy Cook and Skip Phillips finished in between Merlin and Robert with Skip bagging a new PB and a sub 45 minute time of 44:24. Tom Perry finished 5 places and 19 seconds behind Robert but, perhaps showing his inexperience in races, only 1 second behind him on chip time. Tom had the considerable consolation of also achieving a new PB, however, of 44:39 as he continued his improvement since joining the club to finish a 10k race under 45 minutes for the first time.

Be careful who you finish ahead of Skip!

Charlie Cadogan, Simon Wheeler and Andy Bishop were next to finish for GVH before the first of the Harriers’ women, Vicky Crawley Wise finished 21st overall and 7th in her age category, in 47:41. Paul Williams, Darren Burke, Jenny Stubberfield and Tracey Cotton were next, all finishing under 50 minutes. Jack Boughton also finished under 50 minutes, completing the 10k in 49:28. This was his first race for the Harriers and a new PB, beating his previous best 10k time by just over 3 minutes as he clocked 49:28.

Looking strong

Sue Crowther and Isabel Wilson were the most impressive of the female Harriers on the day. Sue finished 40th overall and 2nd in her age category, in a time of 50:42 while Isabel finished 60th overall and 1st in her age category. She also achieved the highest age graded score of the women with 76.54.

Impressive again.

Rachel Haffenden, Helen Cook and Angeline Cottrill all ran strongly to finish within a minute of each other, closely followed by Chrissie Mooney who completed the course in 56:00, beating her previous best time for the distance. Kelly Cox finished the course in 56:52 just ahead of Kim Rodwell who was the last of the Harriers to claim a new PB on the day.

I can throw this, it weighs less than all my medals!

Ashley Owen, Jane Percival, Martin Storrie and Susie Ivin all broke the hour mark with Jane scoring a very respectable 61.26 age graded performance. Mark Whittle finished just ahead of Chris Howe, long term friends Karis Thomas and Helen Terry ran the course together, finishing in just over 65 minutes while Anita Berwick, returning from a long lay off (and looking suspiciously like Ines Trent in the group photo – but nobody told me until after I published the first draft), finished just under 70 minutes and club president Andy Newing rounded out the Gade Valley finishers.

Still got it

The Parkruns took place as usual on Saturday morning and it was a special day for Jo Kidd as she completed her 50th Parkrun at Cassiobury Park. Club chairman Andy Cook was also at Cassiobury Park and he posted afterwards, “Congratulations Joanna Kidd for running her 50th parkrun at Cassiobury, supported by hubby Deano today”.

Parkrun…? It looks like a beach!

Saturday was a busy day for many people as the club had its annual sports day at Jarman Park followed by the Summer barbecue in the evening. The sports day includes track and field events for all the family as well as the Magic Mile, a rare opportunity for GVH athletes to run a timed race on the track as GVH is primarily a road running (and trail and ultra marathon) club. 

Come on lads, look at the oppo, we have to win the team prize today!!

5 Harriers took on the Magic Mile with the standout performances coming from Chris Dowling and Jon Roberts. Chris won the race in a superb time of 5:11 although coach Ed Price said afterwards that, “he was disappointed with that” while Jon Roberts crossed the line in 5:29, breaking the club V50 mile record in the process. Andy Wells clocked 5:38 while Anthony Willcox managed 6:06 and Dan Green completed his first Magic Mile in 6:32.

Disappointing long jump, no doubt.

With Dave Goodman having left the club, it has been left to club legends Helen and Andy Terry to carry the competitive baton on quiet weekends. They did so with aplomb as they took on the Round Sheffield Run. According to its own somewhat hubristic website, this “unique creative format” of “11 timed stages” through “20km of superb trails and parkland across Sheffield” is “the most fun I’ve had running since I was a kid!”

Need to try harder to make the route look like a Strava fish.

Helen and Andy certainly agreed, to an extent, with the organisers, as Helen said before the race, “All ready at the Round Sheffield Run – nice way to spend our wedding anniversary. Fingers crossed we are still married at the end!” They were competing as a mixed pair so they wore the same number and, as Helen explained “he had to stay within arms length of me – no escape”. As far as this reporter knows, their marriage remains intact.

Still married at this point, at least.

As nobody seemed to be racing, or doing all that much, on Sunday, the club’s weekend ended with the annual summer party and barbecue. In true British Summer style, the event saw all 4 seasons as it started slightly overcast, had periods of bright sunshine, was windy almost throughout and finished with some spectacular rain. Michelle Wells summed up the general mood of the club when she posted on Sunday morning, “Just wanted to say a big thank you to Edward Price for an amazing family sports day. So lovely to see so many children. Also a big thank you to everyone at GVH especially Mary McCluskey for the BBQ! Shame about the rain but lovely to catch up with everyone.”

Full Results from the Summer Solstice 10k

The weekend of 18th and 19th June was fairly quiet but a number of Harriers took part in the weekly Parkruns. Jono Marval continued his excellent recent form, being the first Harrier to finish at Gadebridge Parkrun, while Anthony Fogden managed a new personal best, of 25:46 for the hilly 5k. Kim Morgan was the only female Harrier at Gadebridge.

Eight Harriers made the short trip to Watford to run Cassiobury Parkrun. Antony Beamish was the first to finish, crossing the line in exactly 20 minutes, with Andy Cook next home just under two minutes later. Sue Crowther was the first of 5 Harrier women to finish, followed by Helen Cook, Karis Thomas, Jo Kidd and Caron Williams.

Continuing the Harriers burgeoning reputation as a destination for Ultra runners (and perhaps ultra cyclists) was the order of the weekend outside of Parkruns. On Saturday, Phil Robbins led a group of runners on one of his trademark epic runs across London, Guy Woollett and Jon Roberts started the Arts and Science 600k Audax (which lasted into Sunday) and Sam Sparks and Martin Pike took part in the Lea Valley Ultra.

Why is a pretzel the symbol of Staffordshire?

First up, starting just after 7:00AM were Guy and Jon. According to Dictionary.com an Audax is “…a type of long-distance road cycling event in which participants must navigate a route within a specified period of time.” You learn something new every day. They started near King’s Cross Station before heading west through central London and then northwest through Wembley before following a route to the west of Birmingham and the Black Country as far north as Telford in Shropshire.

Look at me, I can do a selfie while riding my bike!

Guy and Jon then turned to the east to head approximately 150km due east before turning south about 40km northwest of Peterborough. They passed to the west of Peterborough before going through Huntingdon, Cambridge and Hertford before returning to Central London via Barnet. The whole adventure took just under 35 hours, so effectively all weekend. It made me tired just typing the last two paragraphs so I can’t imagine how Guy and Jon felt. Normally I’d make up a quote at this point but I think I respect the achievement too much to do that on this occasion.

Too much respect to make up a quote for this map.

Starting slightly later than Guy and Jon, Sam Sparks, who was on the panel at the GVH ultra running symposium last week, and Martin Pike took on the Lea Valley Ultra 50k, from 8:00AM on Saturday. According to its own website, the Lea Valley Ultra “…starts from Welwyn Garden City and takes you all the way to Hackney Wick. Following the scenic Cole Green Way and Lea Valley path from Hertfordshire to London.” Martin finished in 35th overall position, 30th male and 14th in his age category, in 4:48:15 while Sam did even better, finishing 12th female and 6th in her age category in 5:42:39.

Only 50k? What were you thinking?

Later still on Saturday morning, kicking off at the positively lazy start time of just after 9:00AM Phil Robbins led a group of 4 on one of his personally designed RIBIT runs. RIBIT stands for “Run it because it is there” and is a club founded by Phil who loves to take on challenging runs in unusual locations, always exceeding marathon distance (26.2 miles, 42.2k) in length. Over the past 7 or so years, Phil has led groups on themed runs around landmarks in London, long countryside routes celebrating parts of local history and several times following the whole route of one of the London Underground lines. 

There’s only one club in Hemel!

This Saturday the route was the Piccadilly Line. Phil led a group of 4, including GVH runners Phil Mercer and Nick Crowther as well as Dacorum AC’s Kate Rennie. They started at Cockfosters Station, the north easter terminus of the Piccadilly Line and followed the route through central London, along the river through Hammersmith and Turnham Green before following the North Western branch to finish at Uxbridge. Pendants may point out (and I’m definitely one of those, so I will) that this wasn’t the entirety of the Piccadilly Line and may wonder why the group didn’t then proceed south to Heathrow before following that branch back into the fork at Acton Town. Maybe consider the WHOLE line next time Phil?

Phil shows that high brow humour is beyond nobody

After the first handicap of the year in April resembled an audition for the new Ennio Morricone & Sergio Leone collaboration, “For a few Bandits more”, it was perhaps not too much of a surprise to see fewer horse rustling antics for the second handicap of the summer. Admittedly, the existence of the times from the first race shine a metaphorical closed circuit camera on the paddock gates, it was nonetheless surprising to see a relative attack of honesty by even those taking part in their first handicap of the season.

Don’t fear the mask

After a relatively slow 4 miles in the first race, Charlie Cadogan started 2 minutes earlier than he had a month ago. He also ran the course just over a minute faster to finish the race over 3 minutes earlier this time out, jumping from 36th (of 37 runners) in April to 1st in May.

Charlie pictured just before the April handicap

Dan Green was immune from accusations of banditry in April by virtue of being unavailable to race but donned his mask in May as he successfully remained under the radar and managed to grab second place with a solid time of 30:28 for the four miles against a very slightly generous handicap of 10:30. It should be noted, however, that despite finishing second on the day, applying the same formula as last week, Dan would only have achieved the 3 bandit mask rating.

Dan Green slips under the radar to bag a good finish

It was a testament to the excellent organisation shown by Helen Terry that only 3 athletes earned as many as 3 masks this time out. The third to earn this accolade was Isobel Wilson, who finished third. Isobel had seen her start time delayed by a minute from the previous week but had improved her time on the road by just over a minute to see her finishing place jump from 13th to third.

Isobel Guevara crossing the finish line

Jenny Stubberfield also had a superb run. She saw 30 seconds added to her start time but was able to outperform her April time by just over 40 seconds to boost her finish position from 19th to 4th. Jenny’s superb finish time of 31:22 was the quickest of all the women in the race.

Nothing to see here

The winner of the first handicap, Kitty Cole, suffered a brutal 3 minute hit to her start time but she managed to improve her time on the road by 30 seconds and that, combined with the adjustments for all the runners who took part last time out, meant that she was able to finish as high as 6th. With a 1st place and 6th place finish in the bag, Kitty has to be considered the favourite after 2 races.

Kept the kit from the first outing

Steve Newing, competing in his first handicap of the season, finished 5th overall and led home a group of 18 athletes who finished only 63 seconds apart. The handicaps have rarely worked out so well: the gap from Charlie Cadogan in 1st place to Mary McCluskey in 24th place was only 2 minutes and 19 seconds. As this month’s results show, any improvement in anybody’s finishing time could see them shooting up to the top of the list for the June race.

On Sunday, the RideLondon Classique returned after being absent due to Covid in 2020 and 2021. Rebranded and reformatted, the event is a 3 day stage race for professional riders and offers the choice of 30 mile, 60 mile or 100 miles on the Sunday for amateur riders. GVH athletes Kitty Cole (electing to ride a bicycle as horses aren’t allowed) and Kelly Cox took on the 100 mile option. Kelly, riding in her first such event, completed the 100 miles in just under 9 hours, according to her own timings, with an official time of just over 9:34:02.

Kitty saddles up again

Kitty had an eventful ride, saying on Monday morning, “Yesterday’s ride London!! Well, it started off fun. I did my best to enjoy it despite not actually crossing the line until 9:00 and stressing about the cut offs. It was all going pretty well until about 62 miles where I fell. No way was I stopping but 40 miles of pain was no easy ride. I tried to enjoy the views, Essex is pretty! It’s done now and NEVER again! Currently sat in A&E!” Unfortunately, Kitty later reported that she has broken her collarbone and her shoulder as well as collecting various cuts and bruises. We all wish her a speedy recovery and hope she will be back in all types of saddles as soon as possible.

Also on Sunday was the Edinburgh Marathon. Kim Rodwell was running her first ever marathon and was very happy to finish the race in 5:24:31. Kim’s partner Tom Perry was also competing and he managed to score a new PB, and break 4 hours for the first time, finishing in 3:58:00. James Felstead was also representing the club in Edinburgh, clocking a superb time of 3:31:35. 

Finally, Dave Goodman, never knowingly under-marathoned, also took to the streets of the Scottish capital. This was a landmark race for Dave as it was the 60th marathon of his life. Dave said, “My legs weren’t fully recovered from my last adventure on the North Downs Way so I wasn’t going for a time. Mixed crowd points kept me going and I finally finished in 03:45:21. Not bad for a recovery run.” Dave says he is now taking a break to prepare for the Berlin Marathon in September. Given that he has been “recovering” from a marathon almost every week for the past 3 years, it will be interesting to see how fast Dave can complete a marathon with a more gentle build up.

Dave Goodman, M60

Full May Handicap Results

	Name	Watch Time	Handicap	Actual Time	Mask Rating	Sandbags
1	Charlie Cadogan	0:40:52	0:11:30	0:29:22		Loads
2	Dan Green	0:40:58	0:10:30	0:30:28
3	Isabel Wilson	0:41:00	0:07:45	0:33:15
4	Jenny Stubberfield	0:41:22	0:10:00	0:31:22
5	Steve Newing	0:41:35	0:14:00	0:27:35
6	Kitty Cole	0:41:38	0:08:30	0:33:08
7	Andy Cook	0:41:45	0:13:15	0:28:30
8	Vince Ellerby	0:41:46	0:13:45	0:28:01
9	Lewis Saville	0:41:51	0:14:45	0:27:06
10	Phil Mercer	0:41:53	0:13:00	0:28:53
11	Andy Bishop	0:41:54	0:12:30	0:29:24
12	Molly Rice	0:41:57	0:06:45	0:35:12
13	Andy Watt	0:42:00	0:11:30	0:30:30
14	Michael Linden	0:42:01	0:17:15	0:24:46
15	Naomi Carey	0:42:04	0:10:30	0:31:34
16	Andy Wells	0:42:19	0:16:45	0:25:34
17	Gareth Tucker	0:42:24	0:17:30	0:24:54
18	Gary Kingsley	0:42:28	0:10:30	0:31:58
19	Robert Bowler	0:42:31	0:13:30	0:29:01
20	Rachel Haffenden	0:42:35	0:07:30	0:35:05
21	Merlin Allan	0:42:37	0:13:30	0:29:07
22	Matt Ashby	0:42:38	0:19:00	0:23:38
23	Deon Percival	0:42:59	0:12:00	0:30:59
24	Mary McCluskey	0:43:11	0:00:00	0:43:11
25	Ines Trent	0:45:26	0:00:00	0:45:26
26	Helen Cook	0:45:27	0:08:00	0:37:27

It was a very quiet weekend for Gade Valley Harriers on 21st and 22nd May as only one runner took part in a race and only a handful of Harriers took part in Parkruns on Saturday.

The waterfall near Ambleside, on the shores of Lake Windermere

The weekend got under way at 8:00AM as Dave Goodman, often the sole Harrier taking part in some far flung race, undertook another solo mission at the North Downs Ultra Way 50 mile Race. This race starts at Farnham in Surrey and follows the North Downs Way, an ancient path, past Guildford, Box Hill, Reigate and Caterham before the finish at Knockholt Pound near Sevenoaks in Kent.

An oddly niche business in Windermere Village

Obviously, a 50 mile race takes some considerable time, so while Dave was still warming up on the North Downs Way, several Harriers took on the more modest (and some would say more sensible) distance of 5k at the weekly Park Runs. Lewis and Vince Ellerby enjoyed their usual outing to Black Park while Karis Thomas, Chris Howe and Jo Kidd enjoyed a trip to Verulam Park in St Albans.

A deer in a forest near Windermere

Six GVH runners ran at the local Gadebridge Parkrun where Merlin Allan showed his ageless class while Chrissie Mooney was first female Harrier to finish, just under the half hour mark. Peter and Nicole Tucker seem to have run every parkrun in Northern Ireland now, this time taking on Bangor while Helen and Andy Cook enjoyed a 5k run around Fell Foot Park at the Southern tip of Lake Windermere.

A view across Lake Windermere from my holiday in 2020

Meanwhile, while the Parkrunning Harriers were enjoying a coffee after their runs, Dave was just about completing the first 8 miles or so of his odyssey in the South of England. Dave himself takes up the story, “After recent storms the weather held out. It was a nice, somewhat warm, day. I set off around 8am with the goal of just finishing. This was by far the furthest distance I’ve ever run in one go. Some of the elevation gain, especially in the second half of the race, was very challenging.” Dave was up to the challenge as he finished the 50 mile course in 12:05:55.

Dave shows us his stuff yet again