England Athletics Indoor Race Walk Championships, Sheffield (Sun. 19th Jan.)
Hannah Hopper added another national medal to her collection, this time over 3000 metres at the England Athletics Indoor Race Walking Championships in Sheffield.
With thirteen athletes in the combined senior and under 20 women's race the start line was somewhat crowded. At the gun Hannah took the lead and established a small gap to the chasing athletes, who closed her down after few more laps, but Hannah maintained her pace and established an unassailable lead to take the win by 22 seconds in a new life time best of 14:16.93s.
Box Hill Fell Race (Sat. 18th Jan.)
These days Box Hill sells out faster than Glastonbury but 11 of the club's fell runners tore themselves away from Boxing Day festivities for long enough to get a place in the 43rd edition of this iconic race, writes Clem Dixon. It was a strong squad too and hopes of a team prize were high with the regulars being joined by Danny Kendall who finished 2nd here in both 2014 and 2015 but had not run it since.
But things don't always go to plan: an arrow pointing in the wrong direction resulted in the leading seven runners taking a wrong turn, whether this was an error by those marking the course or the result of sabotage we don't know, but Danny had been in 7th position (and 1st M40) at that point and eventually came in in 54th. As a result of these shenanigans James MacDonald took home a bottle of wine for being 3rd M40 as well as being our highest placed finisher (15th) just ahead of John O'Mahony (17th). Geoff Smith (37th) and Danny completed the four to score team for 5th place.
Most years see at least some changes to the course, usually imposed by the National Trust who own the land and seem to permit the race to go ahead with some reluctance. This year was no exception and the changes seemed to add at least half a mile to the advertised 7.5 (with Danny running closer to 10!).
We had two newcomers to this type of running: Peter St Amour ran well to finish in the top 100 but Georgia Huddleston was less fortunate taking a tumble and hobbling to the finish on a sore ankle. If there is anyone else out there who feels that their running could do with a bit more excitement take a look at the fell races on the club calendar: https://www.cambridgeharriers.org/calendar?type=FR and ask advice on which would be suitable. (Full results - here)
Fred Hughes 10, St Albans (Sun. 19th Jan.)
The Fred Hughes 10 is a well established race, organised by St Albans Striders since 1986. The race is held on the rolling country lanes of Bedmond in St Albans, Hertfordshire. Bobby Babaker was the clubs sole representative, crossing the line in 5th place with a time of 52:37.
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