8 August 2021

Three squirrels headed to Highfield Park on a very damp Sunday morning to take part in St Albans Summer 10km hosted by Active Training World. The race started in a time trial format, with the fastest predicted time athletes setting off in wave 1 at 9am, followed by a second wave at 10am. This allowed for social distancing and the starting pen resembled a Formula 1 grid! Team captains John Auld and Tash Pitman started in the 9am wave heading out towards Hatfield along the flat, tree lined former railway line, Alban Way before looping back to St Albans. John finished in 39:16, 5th in the 30-39 age category and 18th male finisher. Tash finished in 42:22, 3rd in her age category, just 15 seconds short of the 2nd place and 6th female overall.
Russ Hagan cheered on his team mates in wave 1, before lining up for the wave 2 start at 10am. The rain had cleared at this point, which saw favourable race conditions help him to a fantastic personal best time of 51:40, achieving 6th place in his age category, a whole 3 minutes ahead of 7th place! Great racing from the squirrels. Russ Hagan said "It was so good to be back in a race again, I ran the St. Albans 10K for the first time a couple of years ago and got a PB so was hopeful I could better it. “
 
Saturday saw our First Saturday of the month 5k race take place on Norton Common. Fifty-Two runners took part with Peter Clarke coming in first with a time of 18:40 and the first lady, finishing in 8th place was Tracy Pitcairn with a time of 21:25. Three buggy runners took on the bumpy terrain of Norton Common, Tom Webb and daughter Olivia led the pack finishing 2nd overall (19:03). Second place was Dave Braybrook with Leo (24:41) and third was Jillian Boys with Mable (30:41). This monthly event is open to all runners and is totally free. See our website to register.
The Squirrel Cup concluded at the end of July it was very tight at the top of the leaderboard with Team ‘Rock cake’ made up of Chris Stokes, Susan Mansfield and Caroline Thrussell taking the top spot with a time of 01:05:08.  They were closely followed by Team ‘Cream Horn’ who took the Silver medal and Team ‘Battenburg’ in Bronze position.  This fabulous competition ran through the month of July and was expertly organised by Mike Bullock.
Sunday 26th September will see the return of the Standalone 10K. There are still places available and members are asked to volunteer for marshalling.

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