It’s been another exciting week for NHRR, packed with stellar performances, personal bests, and some stunning scenery. Whether it’s smashing PBs, conquering ultras, or enjoying a scenic parkrun, the squirrels continue to show their grit and determination.

Round Norfolk Relay
Seventeen squirrels took on the challenge of the Round Norfolk Relay, with Katie Harbon, Adam Wilson, Mike Bannister, Caroline Thrussell, Kat Burr, and Helen Ankers kicking off the first multi-terrain stages along the stunning Norfolk coastline. As the course moved inland, Georgia Head, Paul Bowal, and Vince Wright handed over to the night-running legends Ian Datlen, Mike Over, Nick Malpeli, and Alice Carty, who powered through 62 miles in total darkness.

​This effort was made possible thanks to exceptional support from Caroline Thrussell, Paul Bowal, Georgia Head, Kat Burr, and Richard Harbon, who cycled alongside the night runners for over 55 miles. Rounding out the final stages, Hannah Ridley, Lucy O’Connor, Jo Harbon, and Jennie Fraser took the baton across the flat Fens, completing the final stages to bring the team home ahead of schedule.  The squirrels not only showed speed but tremendous teamwork, with excellent support from both runners and cyclists to complete this demanding and complex event with style and determination.

Squirrels Take on the Ultra Challenge
Our squirrels ventured into ultra territory with impressive results! Laura Fairbanks and Anna Gibson took on the Suffolk Coastal Ultra 50k, running from Lowestoft to Aldeburgh. This beautiful but demanding course featured a mix of terrains, from coastal paths to shingle sections. Laura completed her first ultra in 5:59 (official time), with Anna just seconds ahead at 05:58:58. Both runners praised the well-organized race, complete with flapjacks and crisps at the checkpoints, and enjoyed the stunning coastal views along the way.
 
Meanwhile, in the Lake District, Fiona Baker tackled the brutal Lap Ultra, a 47-mile race with a staggering 2500m elevation gain. Fiona battled through mud, bogs, and challenging terrain to finish in an impressive 15:31:34. Her resilience and determination shone through on this tough course, proving that squirrels can conquer any challenge!

Trail Triumphs and Local Races
The squirrels were out in force across various other races this week. At the Sandridge 10k Trail Race, Richard and Georgia Harbon took on the scenic woodland trails in St Albans, with Georgia finishing in 1:07 and Richard pacing a friend to complete the race just over 58 minutes. The beautiful terrain made this a race to remember and one to look out for next year.

In the Zig Zag Half Marathon, Vanessa Rolfe embraced the unique challenge, completing four laps for a half marathon time of 2:51:28. With an array of post-race treats like sweets, coffee, and cake, Vanessa enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere and celebrated her achievement.

At the Maulden 5k, Nicole Whitton raced through the picturesque scenery, finishing in around 28 minutes, keeping on track with her goal to break 30 minutes.
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Closer to home at the Stevenage 10k, several squirrels put in strong performances. Dervla Downing claimed 1st place in the V45 category with an impressive time of 50:53. For the men, Edward Birdsall achieved a swift 41:38, followed by Chris Tillbrook in 43:45 and James Dalton in 44:56. James Razey rounded off the strong turnout with 53:01.

Squirrels Impress at Rain-Soaked Run Around the Garden
This weekend, North Herts Road Runners hosted the annual Run Around the Garden in Letchworth, which attracted a great turnout despite the rainy weather.

Club members put in an outstanding performance across the board. Matthew Sayers led the charge for the club, finishing 3rd overall and 1st in his age category in the 5k race.

​Ian Datlen followed closely, placing 6th and 4th overall and 1st in his age group. For the ladies, Hannah Ridley impressed with a fantastic 2nd place finish overall and 1st in her age group, while Tracy Pitcairn powered through to claim 3rd overall and 2nd in her category. Lucy O’Connor and Joanne Hoare also delivered standout performances, placing 1st and 5th in their respective categories.

Meanwhile, our squirrels were out flying the flag for NHRR at various events across the UK. ​

Here is the full Parkrun Roundup: ​

A set of storming performances saw North Herts Road Runners take a clutch of gold and silver medals home from the Hatfield 5k.
 
The Squirrels men’s team were crowned Hertfordshire County Champions, with Mike Roberts leading the way and smashing the 16-minute barrier with a 15:58 finish. He was joined on the top step of the podium by Sam Coxon (16:02), Tom Barclay (16:16) and Rob Jowett (16:58).
 
The NHRR ladies’ team placed second in the county standings, with Katie Harbon (17:23) second lady in the race and backed up by Rhia Botha (19:24 and Tracy Pitcairn (21:05).
 
Other NHRR 5k results:
Shahab Ahmed, 17:11; Matt Sayers, 17:15; Shaun Allin, 17:54; Nick Malpeli, 18:11; Mike Phillips, 18:35; Ian Datlen, 18:40; Michael Over, 18:41; Darren Matussa, 19:07; David Edwards, 19:30; Adrian Sherwood, 19:40; Ian Harvey, 19:38; Pete Sibbett, 19:48; Hannah Ridley, 19:57; Kris Whitmore, 20:23; David Weston, 21:18; Rachel Arnott, 21:26; James Godfrey, 21:59; Helen Nuttall, 22:05; Steve Brenton, 21:58; Steve Tracey, 22:07; Caroline Thrussell, 22:14, Richard Weber, 22:25; Natalie Phillips, 23:23; Joanne Hoare, 23:28; Lucy O’Connor, 24:15; Ellie Frid, 25:04; Andrew Wallis, 25:33; Chris Cope, 25:36; Linda Aird, 26:04; Karen Dodsworth, 29:48; Ian Sutcliffe, 30:13; Sharon French, 30:15; Vanessa Rolfe, 34:52; Sheila Leavy, 38:06

Duck ‘N’ Dash Aquathlon
James Keogh maintained his impressive 100% attendance record at the thirteenth iteration of the Duck ‘N’ Dash – the popular 400m swim and 5k run event organised every year by Freedom Tri on Norton Common.
 
Despite warnings that the pool ‘might be a bit choppy’ owing to the record number of participants, James had a smooth swim right until the end of the last length, when he was overtaken by two faster swimmers and had a short delay waiting for the exit steps.
 
He reported that ‘transition is always fun for me as I don’t practise the putting on the shoes and socks element like a true triathlete’, and the one year he attempted the 5k run without socks he ‘ended up with bleeding feet.’
 
James ‘felt quite fresh on the run’ and finished in 30:38 for 22nd place. His verdict: ‘All in all, once again a great, fun event, and it’s keeping up its record of always being on a nice sunny day.’
 
Meanwhile Sophie Thrussell turned in a sparkling performance to win the ladies’ race with a superb time of 29:06.
 
Other NHRR finishers included Tracy Pitcairn (32:24), Simon Clapham (35:11), James Godfrey (35:30), Helen Harbon-Ankers (39:36) and Andrew Robson (44:33).
 
Amanda Greig and Andrew Coates competed in the relay event, finishing in 32:13.

Something Wild Festival
Georgia Head and Caroline Thrussell enjoyed the Something Wild Running Festival Weekend in Hope Cove, South Devon. Saturday saw them tackle a seven-mile sea swim / run event, which Georgia said ‘put us both totally out of our comfort zone, but we finished, coming in as first and third lady respectively.’
 
Sunday’s event was ‘a beautiful but extremely challenging half marathon along the gorgeous Southwest coast pat’, which they completed together in 2 hrs 40 mins.
 
Jennie Fraser was also at the Something Wild Festival and took on the full marathon option. Despite a fall she still completed the half-marathon course!

Northstowe Half-marathon
Despite having ‘raced no further than 10 miles for much of the last two years’, Bev Rimmer found her ‘curiosity piqued’ by the Northstowe Half, ‘as Northstowe had just been a rumour, a murmur of a new town on the edge of the city when I lived in Cambridge, and now it’s a reality – it even has its own running festival.’
 
Bev set off with ‘no particular race plan or fuelling strategy in mind, even leading my wave for all of a corner before I was predictably overtaken by some faster runners.’
 
She felt strong and consistent throughout, and completed the course in 2hrs 10 mins, saying it was ‘the most consistent I’ve been, the happiest I’ve felt while racing a long way, and the strongest I’ve felt afterwards’. She concluded  ‘If that’s me on an average day, you won’t stop me on a good day!

Steeple Morden 10k Friendship Run
Anna Greetham, Matt Roberts and Kyle Stout ran the Steeple Morden 10k Friendship Run which was raising funds for the Arthur Rank Hospice Charity.  Anna described the event as perfect, well organised and said it was a great way to spend a Sunday morning.

Tavy5K
Stephen Doran who is coming back from injury did the Tavy5K in Tavistock on Saturday in a time of 30:25. Stephen was able to claim the honour of being the first North Herts Road Runner to ever have competed in this race, according to the organisers.

The Resolution 5k
On Wednesday evening, 11 squirrels braved the 25c heat, alongside runners from Stevenage Striders, Fairlands Valley Spartans & Stevenage Phoenix, to take part in the Resolution 5k at Ridlins athletics track, Stevenage. Running a 5km track event presents a unique experience due to the predictability of the course, allowing runners to focus more on pace, form, and consistency rather than the route.

The event was split into 3 races based on runner’s expected finish times, starting at 18:45, 19:30 & 20:00 respectively, with the fastest runners competing in the final race. If the heat & humidity did affect anybody’s performance, it wasn’t obvious from the amazing results, and afterwards, the consensus seemed to be that people really enjoyed the challenge. 
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Linda Aird commented that “those of us in the first race were running on a track almost completely bathed in sunshine, so we knew that running 12.5 laps at 5k pace would be a challenge” and that she was “very pleased to have finished in 26:33 - over a minute faster than last year's time” with “consistent lap times showing only a couple of seconds variation between laps”.
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Results as follows:

First Saturday of the Month
The hot and humid weather proved no obstacle to our dedicated club runners, 27 of whom completed our monthly sojourn around Norton Common. There were some cracking performances on display:

Wokington Running Festival
 Tom Barclay competed in and won the 5K race as part of the Workington Running Festival Tom completed the course in 17:03 to take the win. Tom commented that it was a super friendly event organised by local club, Cumberland AC.

Parkrun Roundup
With our First Saturday of the Month taking place on the same day, there were perhaps fewer parkrun results than usual to report on, but for those who did get to run, there were some excellent times to report:

The North Herts Road Runners club mascot, Cyril the squirrel led the 100 deep queue on Tuesday 23rd July for ice cream from the Ice Baby ice cream van. After training, the club treated their members to free ice cream following their superb racing in the consecutive Three Counties Cross Country and Mid-Week League racing seasons.
 
In the Three Counties Cross Country, NHRR are five time champions and the club finished comfortably on the podium in Third place within division one of the Mid-Week League.

NHRR Parkrun Roundup 
As usual, the NHRR members enjoyed the various Parkrun events on offer, with the fastest time being bagged by Tom Barclay, completing the Selby event in 16:20 and Tracy Pitcairn being the quickest Park running NHRR lady completing the Westmill event in 22:52. Michael Over used the opportunity of being on holiday for some Parkrun Tourism, completing the Bryn Bach course 1st in his age category in a superb 19:23. 

Thursday evening saw 432 runners gather at Marriotts School in Stevenage to take part in the 31st annual FVS 3K relays. It’s always a fun event, with teams of 4 competing against runners from Herts and Beds running clubs and hosted by Stevenage's biggest running club, Fairlands Valley Spartans. Each runner must complete a gently undulating 3km course round the sailing lake in Fairlands Valley Park which was glistening in the late evening sunshine. There were awards for the top three teams in both the open and Herts Senior and Herts Veterans Mixed, Womens and Mens categories.
 
North Herts Road Runners enjoyed great success on the night with 13 teams competing and county medal winning performances from Katie Harbon taking top spot in the women’s race and the only female to dip under 11 minutes. Rhia Botha took 3rd place in the veteran 35 category while Linda Aird and Pete Sibbett both stormed to top spot in their respective veteran 65 and 60 categories. The teams were also successful with Katie Harbon, Rhia Botha and Tracy Pitcairn taking the county female senior silver team medal, while the club’s male veteran also took team silver: Shahab Ahmad; Matt Sayers; Daren Matussa and Vince Wright. In the mixed open event, NHRR team Ground Squirrel comprising Shaun Allin, Hannah Ridley, Natalie Phillips and Richard Springall came 3rd. Men’s team captain John Auld commented, ‘It’s such a fun race, unusual in it’s format and distance and brilliant to be able to run as well as watch and cheer fellow team mates. It was a fantastic atmosphere and great end to the summer club racing.’
 
On Sunday the trio of Sue Foot, Miranda Morgan and Andrew Cook fancied a longer distance and they were in luck as Spartans held their second event in 3 days which included a a self-navigating route of 26.5 miles starting and finishing at Marriotts School and mainly on trails and across farmland.  Sue reported, ‘We had to battle our way through some very tall sweetcorn fields with no clear path to follow. We had perfect weather and finished in 6 hours and 50 minutes.’

Parkrun roundup 20th July
Philip shared a lovely report from Didcot:   I spent this weekend visiting my daughter and family and joined them (first time for me) at their local parkrun at Didcot. It's a lovely course with the runners nicely spread out at the start. When they asked for any tourists, I got a few funny looks when I said Letchworth Garden City, North Herts but I wore my club shirt with pride. Over half of the fairly flat route was on grass and the rest on tarmac. You could hear the sound of the steam trains tooting their whistles at the famous railway centre behind the trees bordering the route. I shunted my way round to come 100th out of 227, 2nd out of 3 in my age group. I was very pleased to record my best parkrun time for this year 28:33. As usual, the marshalls and spectators were excellent. I would recommend this parkrun should you find yourself in this part of Oxfordshire.

Wednesday night saw the conclusion of the Midweek league series. The annual Mob match saw the clubs from all leagues race around the Welwyn course.  Tom Barclay lead the team home with a 6th place overall. First lady for NHRR was Riha Botha. 15 squirrels ran the mob match. Both of out teams were one member short of a full team. The ladies finished 5th/23 and the men’s team finished 12th. At least it meant that everybody that ran scored for the team. 
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​Full results are 

Ultra 5 x 5k - Box end park
Kris Whitmore, Ian Datlen and Rhia Botha ran the ultra 5k at Box End, which consists of 5 x 5k, a 5k every hour on the hour for 5 hours. It was a beautiful day and a wonderful, yet gruelling race.

Rhia won 1st female in a cumulative time of 1hr 53 mins, beating her time from last year, also breaking her own record for the fastest ever female to do all 5.  Kris came in 11th but unfortunately Ian had to step out after the first leg due to aggravation of a previous hamstring injury

XTERRA Snowdonia Half Marathon and 10km
The XTERRA Snowdonia Half Marathon and 10km races, held amidst the breath taking landscapes of North Wales, promised both a challenging and exhilarating experience for all participants. The morning dawned crisp and clear, perfect conditions for trail running.

Georgia, who had been diligently recovering from a significant back injury, approached the 10km race with a mix of trepidation and determination. Despite the physical and mental hurdles of her recovery, she was committed to testing her limits on the demanding Snowdonia trails. The race started off with a steep ascent that quickly tested everyone's stamina.

As the course wove around the quarries, Georgia's enthusiasm began to wane. The rugged terrain, marked by loose stones and uneven paths, was far from her favourite. The stark, industrial remnants of the quarries offered little in the way of scenic distraction, making this segment of the race particularly gruelling for her. "Not impressed," she thought, powering through with sheer grit and focus. Despite her discontent with the quarry section, Georgia’s training paid off as she pushed through the discomfort, eventually crossing the finish line with a sense of hard-earned accomplishment.

Meanwhile, in the half marathon, Richard and Natalie embarked on their race with a shared excitement. For Natalie, it was her very first trail marathon, and she was thrilled to experience it alongside Richard, a seasoned trail runner. The pair maintained a steady pace as they navigated the undulating trails, the camaraderie between them evident in their synchronized strides and mutual encouragement.

One of the highlights of their race was reaching the Halfway House on the Llanberis path. The quaint, rustic stop was renowned for serving the best cup of tea in the area, a well-deserved treat for the weary runners. Richard and Natalie savoured this brief respite, the warmth of the tea invigorating them for the challenging miles ahead. They exchanged stories and laughs, rejuvenated by both the tea and the stunning panoramic views of Snowdonia's peaks and valleys.
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As they neared the final stretch, Natalie felt the familiar burn of fatigue setting in, but Richard’s steady presence and encouragement kept her spirits high. They crossed the finish line together, a testament to their teamwork and perseverance. Natalie’s face beamed with the triumph of completing her first trail marathon, while Richard’s pride in her achievement was palpable.

Parkrun roundup
Bev Rimmer took on Pymmes in north London this week. The course is flat as a pancake, and takes in almost three laps of Pymmes Park. Bev says ‘My times have been fluctuating a lot this year, and I’m usually happy with anything around the 28 or 29-minute mark…however this one was fast from the off. No inclines, no excuse - I ran a season best of 00:26:49. Exhausted - yes! Pleased - also yes!’