On the last weekend of January there wasn’t any organised racing action for Gade Valley Harriers so it was a convenient time for the club to continue its monthly Parkrun tour. So it was that on Saturday 28th January that a large cohort of over 20 GVH runners gathered at Leavesden Country Park to take part in a relatively new parkrun, it being only the 14th running at this venue.

Stu Gallagher showed that his fitness was definitely improving by finishing first for the Harriers, 4th overall, in 19:40, just 8 seconds and one place ahead of Nick Crowther. Anthony Willcox joined the Harriers as he feels his way back from long term fitness problems and was one of only 2 GVH runners to have run at Leavesden before. Sue Crowther was the first GVH woman to finish, also finishing first in her age category, while Helen Cook was 2nd in the same category. Jane Percival was the other Harrier to have run at Leavesden before and she managed to record her best time at the venue.

Why is Sam wearing a crown???

February kicked off with a bang as a large group of Harriers made the short trip to Cassiobury Park on Sunday February 5th for the Watford Half Marathon. This is always a popular race with a strong field and is often combined with the Hertfordshire Half Marathon championships, as it was this year. The 13.1 miles starts and finishes in the park, proceeds through the Cassiobury Park estate to the outskirts of Watford where it climbs through the lanes and over the M25 towards Commonwood and Sarrat before returning back through Whippendell Woods. Although the infamous ascent of Deadman’s Ash is no longer part of the course, there is still a very challenging 230m of total climb, making this one of the toughest challenges on the local circuit.

Matt Ashby again led from the front for GVH, being the only Harrier to duck under the 80 minute mark. He finished in 1:19:47, 28th overall. Michael Linden, who had missed the recent Fred Hughes 10 with a hamstring problem, emphatically put that behind him as he ran very strongly to record 1:23:20, finishing in 52nd place and with the highest age graded score on the day for the Harriers.

He floats everywhere since he got those Nike shoes!

Men’s captain Andy Wells finished next for the Harriers, 72nd in 1:25:53. Stu Gallagher stormed through the field over the closing miles to finish just 5 seconds and one place behind Andy. Andy said, “Stu ran past me right at the end in the last two races so when I turned the final corner and saw him just behind I decided I wasn’t going to let him get past today!” James Birnie finished next for GVH, almost 2 minutes further back. He had struggled badly over the closing miles having missed 2 of the previous 3 weeks of training through illness and injury. He commented later, “I was finished after about 8 miles so I wasn’t surprised to have Wellsy and then Stu go past me. In the end I was just happy to finish and still be able to walk!”

If only I was that close to Wellsy at the end!

At this point it is probably time to report the team result. Anybody browsing on to the EventChipTiming website can find the results and click on a sub page for Herts Vet Championships. That shows the top four GVH finishers as Mike Linden (10), Andy Wells (12), Stu Gallagher (13) and James Birnie (16). There is also a link at the top of the page for “Teams” which shows GVH in first place (47 points, 4 members) ahead of Watford Joggers (50 points). It isn’t clear how the maths works since our first four finish positions add up to 51. A check of the finish list puts Watford Joggers at 54 points, still 3 points in arrears, but frankly I don’t quite know (a) whether we won and (b) exactly what competition we won.

Tom Langdown made a surprise return to GVH colours. A surprise in the sense that nobody was expecting to see him and he wasn’t wearing GVH colours (though he did make an appearance in the team photo). Before the race he had said that “I’ll start out trying to run 7 minute miles but I have no idea whether that could go horribly wrong and I’ll end up walking or whether I’ll realise I should have gone a lot quicker earlier. This will be the furthest I’ve run since last year’s London Marathon.” As it transpired it was closer to the latter outcome than the former as he got quicker through the race to almost catch James on the line. He finished just one place and one second back on the road from James.

Not only was he wearing some weird pink thing, he failed to recognise our new vests!

Phil Mercer and Steve Newing, both of whom have been struggling for fitness recently were next for the Harriers, before Roland Kendall stormed home in 1:40:05. Roland joined GVH just before the pandemic and so only recently has been able to measure his progression with improving PBs. Roly smashed yet another PB, this time taking nearly 6 minutes off his previous mark, set at the Hertfordshire Half marathon back in November last year.

James Felstead, Robert Bowler and Andrew Terry were next for GVH with Pippa Martin not far behind Andy, finishing the course in 1:55:22. Women’s captain Kim Morgan and Kitty Cole were next to finish with Kim having paced Kitty over the distance. They somehow managed to finish 2 places apart, with Kim apparently ahead, despite being credited with the exact same finish time.

Kim cackles with laughter after leaving Kitty behind at the end

Mike Evans and Chris Howe were the last of the GVH men to finish with Chris managing a massive PB. He commented on social media that he was “ aiming for 2 hours 25. Whoops! Smashed my PB!” He didn’t tell the world what his previous PB was so we’ll have to take his word that he “smashed” it. Rounding out the GVH participants was Gemma Tucker. She hadn’t raced Watford before but had clearly been briefed on what to expect as she said afterwards, “They didn’t lie, horrible course!” Some of us (myself included) were tempted to argue that the scenery and the challenging nature made it a far from horrible course, but the look on her face at the time was one that brooked no argument from any sensible person.

It was horrible. Don’t tell me otherwise!

Full Results from Watford Half Marathon

Full Results from Leavesden Parkrun Tour