Racing Round Up – w.e 30th June – Tom’s Bransdale, Endure 24, Harrogate 10k.

Please send race reports, photos & results to : ykhracereports@gmail.com

-Tom’s Bransdale Fell Race.

A fantastic Wednesday evening out on the Moors, with a race record number of runners aided by a 30 strong Knavesmire contingent, must be the best attended fell race by YKH. A fitting tribute to Tom Watson, a club member sadly no longer with us who was instrumental in organising this race when it first started.

The race itself is am almost 8 mile ribbon of pure perfection, in a hidden gem of a valley in the North York’s Moors. It has a bit of everything, fast running, tricky trods, a big hill and the ruined farmyard of doom. The lefthand exit is the one to go for, but runners can’t resist the temptations of the righthand gate and are lured into a fools errand. Many warnings were given on the Whattsapp group.

: Winning Female Team of Claire and Cassie ( minus Rebekah)

: 1st Mens Team Baz, Giles, Chris & Mike

Knavesmire were rewarded with 1st place in both team classes and a number of age category prizes.
No one was mislaid for too long and all returned in one piece, hopefully some of the fell newbies will return for the next race Cock Howe and Beyond on Wednesday 17th July at Chop Gate.

: 2nd Female Claire

: 2nd M65 Andrew & 1st F45 Beth

: 2nd F45 Katy

: 2nd F50 Orna

9th Chris Roberts 63:07
18th Michael Shaw 66:48
23rd Giles Hawking 68:53 2nd M50
29th Claire Jones 70:34 2nd Female / 1st FO
32nd Barry Atkinson 72:42 2nd M60
33rd Edward Hinton 72:46
34th Richard Purser 73:35
36th Chris Doble 75:01
37th Kieron Niven 75:07
43rd Thomas Morrell 76:04
45th Ed Roberts 76:37
47th Cassie Read 77:58
48th Will Pritchard 78:05
54th Matthew Freeman 79:19
57th Graham Gill 80:18
61st Rebekah Thomas 80:49
62nd Andy Sumner 81:03
65th Luke Osborn 83:47
68th Beth Benger 87:47 1st F45
69th Andrew Johnson 87:49 2nd M65
71st Alan Wilkinson 88:21
72nd Katy Lee 88:27 2nd F45
75th Melanie Ellwood 89:07
76th Glynn Ellwood 89:08
80th Emma Lea 89:33
82nd Bryan Drew 90:05
83rd Orna O’Toole 90:15 2nd F50
84th Rob Bozeat 90:41
85th Simon Dixon 90:48
101st Alison Gooda 105:43

—Endure 24.

Glastonbury organisers must have been red-faced when they realised they had once again blundered and scheduled their concert series in competition with West Yorkshire’s premier 24-hour running event. The fields of Somerset could be observed to be almost completely empty (note: check if this is true before sending) as people instead flocked to Bramham Park to tackle 24 hours of running, either solo or in teams of up to 12.

Plenty of Harriers have taken part in Endure24 before but the club has never been represented by its own teams before. Until now! Four solo runners and three teams of six took to the gorgeous trails at midday on Saturday and continued for as long as they saw fit. Conditions were initially ideal for running with temperatures in the mid teens and plenty of cloud cover.

: The ‘before’ photo in camp

Ruth, Pete and last minute super-sub Thandi were our representatives at the mass start for team Alpha, team A and team 1 respectively. Enthusiasm levels were high and the early laps saw quick times for the 8 km course, leaving some observers to wonder whether every runner realised they had to run it more than once. The teams quickly settled into a rhythm though, and the pace became a bit more sustainable with incoming runners getting a good feel for when they could expect to take over from their teammates.

In the solo event, Ellie did her initial laps well under an hour, reaching 50 miles in under 9 hours and climbing as high as second on the leaderboard. Andrew adopted a strategy of repeating two laps on followed by a short break, while Kevin and Alison stuck to their plan of getting laps in on Saturday evening before stopping and resuming in the morning.

The evening saw rain arrive and get progressively heavier, causing the course to become muddy and very slippery in places. Those of us who had failed to pack trail shoes were left cursing our decision and the enthusiasm to head to the exchange area waned in some quarters, with temperatures and energy levels both dropping significantly. Nevertheless, the runners held firm and continued to churn out lap after lap into the small hours, with many finding comfort in the form of a large fire pit in the event village between laps.

: The fire pit was a popular feature overnight

Despite several runners retiring to bed openly expressing doubt about their ability to resume running the next morning, the early sunrise and cloudless morning seemed to instil a new lease of life into everyone! It had looked certain at one stage that the teams would end up with gaps in the roster or people having to take on unwanted double shifts but the renewed enthusiasm meant we were able to keep to plan and have an uninterrupted stream of runners out on course.

As midday rolled around on Sunday, people were enjoying their final laps watching the sunrise or bathed in glorious sunshine. Team Alpha opted for a walking finale while teams 1 and A remarkably crossed paths and finished with identical times after Fran and Alan decided to run the last 2 km together. Those two teams took category positions 8 and 9 out of 79, which is a fantastic result for our club’s debut!

: Synchronised finish for teams 1 and A

Thanks to everyone who made it such a great event – everyone pitched in to help out others with logistics, planning, support and lifts. We’re already planning to do it again next year – will you join us?

Teams

Team 1 (Thandi Revill, Steve Bell, Francisco Mateo, Rob Woodward, Ste Robson & Mandy Clarke): 35 laps, 280 km / 175 mi, position 8/79

Team A (Pete Downes, Francesca Sawer, Alan Wilkinson, Calum Okeudo-Cogan, Kathryn Dickinson & Derek Hatley): 34 laps, 272 km / 170 mi, position 9/79

Team Alpha (Ruth Robson, Liz Piper, Emily Lenderyou, David Dickinson, Teddy Wilcox & Vicky Wilkie): 21 laps (168 km / 105 mi), position 71/79

Solos

Ellie Wilkinson: 15 laps, 120 km / 75 mi

Andrew McMorris: 12 laps, 98 km / 60 mi

Kevin Blount: 7 laps, 56 km / 35 mi

Alison Cockerill: 4 laps, 32 km / 20 mi

—Round Sheffield Run.

An event comprising of 11 different timed stages.

1970th Kristiina Hanson / Emma Hartley 2:10:27
2236th Amanda Selvaratnam 2:15:59

—Run Harrogate 10k.

23rd Rob Whitaker 40:51 1st M45
26th Kate Thompson 41:15 3rd Female/1st F35
738th Susan Adams 1:25:07

—York Area Parkrun PB’s.

–York parkrun.

Julie Sykes 27:16