10K Pbs and a British Championships Finalist

David Annetts at the British Indoor Athletics Championships

The North Herts Road Runners were immensely proud to see one of their members represent the club in the 5000m Walking Final at the British Indoor Athletics Championship on Sunday which was aired on the BBC. David Annetts who has been representing the club in walking races the length and breadth of the country lined up in Birmingham alongside the best in the country including the eventual winner Tom Bosworth. After an excellent start the pressure resulted in many of the competitors being disqualified including a disappointed David at the 4km mark. Having trained since January for the difficult race the standard was set extremely high with the km splits being sub 4 with Tom Bosworth’s eventual finishing time being 19:22. A remarkable time given it is a walking race.

Despite the wet and windy conditions a number of ‘Personal Bests’ were set at the Love Welwyn 10k race on Sunday including two members receiving medals. Rob Harris was pleased to finish in a superb time of 37:46 earning him 4th place overall and 1st in the MV40 category. Monica Cullin also won a medal for coming first in the FV70 category with her time of 1:33:13. The popular local event also attracted 9 other squirrels of which 6 managed to beat their previous 10k time. Jennie Andrews showed a huge improvement in this event by smashing her previous time by 11 minutes to finish in 53:41. Other PBs included Helen Marson-Smith with 1:03:45, Jim Marvell in 1:03:29, Hayley Cocks in 1:06:43, Ali Mottram in 1:06:08 and Jo Sopala in 1:07:50.

Elsewhere Sue Foot continued to rack up her impressive mileage by taking part in the Stopsley Challenge. The challenge was to run as many laps as you could or wanted to within six hours. The long lap was 5.1 miles along country roads around Offley. The first half was mostly downhill but the second half took the runners up some very long and challenging hills. The shorter lap was just under a mile. Sue managed five laps of the five mile route and one lap of the shorter route making it 26.4 miles in total!

Sue remarked, “The weather was pretty brutal throughout and the puddles got gradually bigger and the hills seemed to get tougher, but despite walking up some of the hills and trying to avoid some car drivers who thought it might be fun to spray me with the muddy puddles when they drove past at speed, I finished in 4.49!”

Stewart Overton continued his fine form whilst preparing for the London Marathon. He competed in the Worthing Half Marathon which was challenging in the wind and rain. Despite the conditions Stewart targeted a sub 80 race which he managed by finishing in a fine 1:19:01. An excellent time and good preparation for his next race The Big Half in London on the 10th March. Another squirrel, Elwyn Russell Howell also ran a half marathon at the weekend in the Olympic Park finishing in 2 hours 32.