The marathon season continued on the weekend of 13th & 14th April, with some high quality performances, a handful of Harriers at the Manchester Marathon and a surprise (to me, I’m assuming not to the participants) outing for two Reasons (sorry) in an ultra in...

With Easter having come and gone a little earlier than in many years, April was left open this year for the marathon season. The season duly got underway last weekend with a handful of GVH athletes travelling to Paris (lucky them) and a fine solo effort at the Milan...

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...

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...

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....

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

There were a few races on the weekend of 7th / 8th October as the autumn season seemingly got into full swing. On Saturday morning a fair few Harriers took on various local parkruns. At Rickmansworth, Gareth Tucker and Steve Newing ran under 20 minutes for the men...

Before diving into the always interesting results from last weekend, an apology. Sometimes I make things up, especially quotes, to make things more interesting (but I don’t make results up) and sometimes I try to make jokes. I do sometimes intend to poke fun at people...

September 23rd / 24th was a busy weekend for Gade Valley Harriers with athletes taking part in distances from 5k up to 50k. Before that though, some unfinished business from last weekend as Anita Fenoughty, having graduated from the L2R program only last year, took on...

Back on Thursday 7th September 35 Harriers gathered for the final round of the 2023 handicap series. As ever, the club extends its thanks to Helen Terry for organising the series and sorting the fact from the fiction and the downright lies in people’s handicap...

As the long summer holidays came to a close (at least for my children and my partner, my “summer holidays” lasted exactly 6 working days and ended a month ago) Gade Valley celebrated with the final race of the year long Club League at the Bedford Festival of Running...

There are fewer races during the holiday season. Probably because people go on holiday. And there are fewer people writing about races during the holiday season, because they go on holiday too. So my apologies go out to anybody who did actually race in the past couple...

On Wednesday 19th July 12 Gade Valley Harriers gathered at Waddesdon Manor near the village of Waddesdon, north of Aylesbury, for the July round of the Club League. The Waddesdon 5k race follows a fairly simple out and back (up and down) route. It starts in the big...

According to Wikipedia, Bilbo Baggins, at the start of Lord of the Rings, travels to Rivendell and visits the dwarves of the Lonely Mountain before returning to retire at Rivendell and write books. One assumes that one day he would catch up with Frodo, after the...

Midsummer always seems to come a bit earlier than expected. It seems like the summer only started a couple of weeks ago and yet last Wednesday, 21st June, was the Summer Solstice 10k in St Albans. Given that (hopefully) summer should last until somewhere around early...