Squirrels tame ‘horrible’ Baldock Beast storm

​North Herts Road Runners tackled what club member Richard Weber described as ‘horrible wind and rain’ at the Baldock Beast half-marathon, but still managed to come away with both ladies’ and men’s team and individual prizes.
 
The ‘Beast’ always serves up a notoriously demanding and hilly course across 13.1 miles of lanes between Baldock and Sandon, and this year’s event added gales and driving rain to the usual challenge.
 
A strong turnout of 33 Squirrels was rewarded with Tash Pitman, Anna Greetham and Kat Hinitt carrying off the female team prize and the quartet of Tom Webb, Matt Sayers, Stewart Overton and Ben Sewell taking the men’s honours.
 
Webb also won the individual race in a superb time of 1:20:55 and Pitman was first lady in 1:37:48.
 
Other notable performances from the Squirrels included Richard Weber’s ‘all-time second-best half-marathon’ of 1:51:40 and Andrew Coates clocking 2:00:02 despite the ‘horrible weather’.
 
Full list of North Herts finishers: Tom Webb 1:20:55, Matt Sayers 1:21:52, Stewart Overton 1:23:45, Ben Sewell, 1:25:45, Mark Bulley 1:29:02, Vince Wright 1:29:37, Nick Malpeli 1:32:23, David Burkhart 1:35:23, Adrian Sherwood 1:35:40, Ian Datlen 1:36:30, Tash Pitman 1:37:48, James Dalton 1:37:42, Anna Greetham 1:46:22, Matt Roberts 1:46:25, Richard Weber 1:51:40, David Weston 1:51:59, Kat Hinitt,1:53:08, Ian Harvey 1:55:48, Michael Over 1:56:53, Richard Thackeray 1:57:29, Jane Clarke 1:58:22, Lucy O’Connor 1:58:40, Andrew Coates 2:00:02, Philip Stapleton 2:02:09, Jodie Wilkes 2:04:45, Merrisa Peynado 2:04:56, Luke Callan 2:07:38, Lucy Hurley 2:11:42, Gladys Cheng 2:14:05, Mel Flynn 2:14:44, Hailey Batson 2:21:04, David Glennie 2:29:03, Carina Quayle 2:30:06, Vanessa Rolfe 2:47:52.