Flying Squirrels at the Hitchin 5k

NHRR at the Hitchin Town Centre 5K

Now in its fourth year running, the Hitchin 5k as organised by fellow running club the Hitchin Hares went off without a ‘hitch’. A fun community race, it involves two laps of the small market town both starting and finishing in the market square. There was quite a turnout from North Herts Road Runners in support of this excellent event. Superb individual performances also lent themselves to the club finishing in 3rd Team place overall. Mark Vaughan, Paula Holm, James Dalton and Niccolo Bassani all producing top results in order to win the team prize. Mark Vaughan finished 2nd Male in 17:01 whilst Paula was overjoyed at finally winning some money as second lady in an excellent time of 20:51.

Amongst others the Cocks family descended on the town with both mum and daughter achieving PBs. Hayley ran the race in 31:44 which was an improvement of 5 minutes and 6 seconds compared to last year which ‘goes to show that the training really does pay off’. Her daughter Abbi pushed herself to her limits finishing in 28:48 whilst Stuart finished first for the family in 22:13.

Other notable performances were Geoff Pettengell in 32:38 with this being his first competitive race for nearly a year; Ian Sutcliffe finishing 1st in the V70 category in a time of 26:55, Lewina Agius finishing with a PB of 26:40 in her first ever 5k race and Jillian Boys setting a new PB of 22:59.

In other races Vanessa Rolfe ran the MIlton Keynes Half in 2:22:52 and especially enjoyed the fact that it was on a Saturday with a late start time of 1pm! This being a week after sneaking in a quick Sheffield 10k in 65:15 on the way home from a holiday. True dedication!

Stewart Overton ventured up to Biggleswade for one last track race in the 3000 Open and finished 1st in an absolutely superb time of 9:40. A great finish to the summer season in prep for the upcoming glorious cross country.

Steve Foster surprised himself after bettering his time of 1:35 in the Great North Run at the Windsor Half in 1:31:44 whilst Andrew Robson continued his dedication to the Bedford Sprint Triathlon Series completing his 12th consecutive entry to this race (3 races a year for 4 years) in 1:31:16.

Also the England Masters Inter-area cross-country challenge was held on Saturday at Bury St Edmonds. There were two races, women (all ages) and men 65+ over 6km and then a third race which was all men aged 35-60 over 8km. It was a flat and fast course over varied terrain, in glorious sunshine. Andrew Leach was 8th in the men's race (first M50). Andrew was also a members of the winning East region team (this involves a rather complex scoring scheme, based on age-graded times, 10 men + 5 women per team). The race is also being used as a "selection guide" for the upcoming Britain/Ireland Masters cross-country international in November. We wish  Andrew good luck in this endeavour!