Tag: 10k

11 Oct 2015 – Stilton Stumble

Annoyingly scheduled for the same day as the Eaton Stampede, the Stilton Stumble is a fantastic local road race based around Cropwell Bishop. This year’s schedule clash clearly impacted on numbers as only 217 people took on the 10k (including 5 Striders), and 67 challenged themselves over the longer 24k distance. After some questioning over the course length following last year’s event, the courses had been officially re-measured and lengthened slightly.

After winning the 10k event last year, Jason Barton was looking to retain his crown, and quite definitely did all that he could to do so, taking almost a minute off his winning time from last year to finish in 35.29. Sadly, with any event like this, it is all dependent on who turns up on the day, and although this pace put him 2 whole minutes ahead of third place, it was not enough to seal the victory as the course record was smashed by a runner from Shelton who got round in 34.45.

Next Strider back was 12th placed Darren Glover who ran a superb race to finish in 40.37. Ben Pickard was on the cusp of a PB with 45.16, followed by Sarah Proctor (52.45). Laura Pickard took a massive 3 minutes from her PB to finish under the hour mark for the first time in 58.32.

Shane Sharkey was the only Strider to take on the 24k course and got around in 1.53.02 – 20th place.  [Shane]

11 Oct – Coalville 10k

Stuart Gregory was the only Stilton Strider to enter the Coalville 10km which takes place in the grounds of Snibston Country Park. The two lap course involves short sharp hills, gravel and tarmac paths, muddy footpaths and a small meadow just for good measure. As there were a number of other races on nearby numbers were surprisingly slightly up this year as Stuart set off with 106 other runners hoping to triumph. At the half way point Stuart was already over a minute and half down on his time from last year and this continued on the second lap as he crossed the finish line in 58th place 16 places down on the previous year with a time of 1hr 01m 12s some 2 minutes 56 seconds down on the previous year.  [Stuart]

19/20 Sep 2015 – Equinox 24

Wow! What an incredible weekend! We put in three large teams and two solo runners, and no-one can feel disappointed with what they’ve done. Epic performances all round!

Throughout the weekend, the team results were categorised by gender (male, female, mixed) on the leader-board. Our ladies team “Stilton Striders B Team” finished as the top ranking female team at the event, while “Studs in the Mud” were the 4th best all-male large team there.  I had the pleasure of seeing my team-mates show some incredible efforts over the tough course to finish as the weekends 2nd ranked male team overall, but sadly just missed out on a podium spot by 7 minutes!

Rich Gray ran strongly throughout, and although feeling a little bit ropey on Lap 7 (afterall, that is around 71k!!) went on to complete a superb 14 laps, while the rest of us were moaning after 3. Also, making it look easy, Wendy Piesley, doing her first ever ultra event (having never done more than a Half Marathon before?!?!) put in an amazing 8 laps – totaling an incredible 50 miles!!!!

Already signed up for next year, we have one team (headed by myself and Jay so far), and THREE (maybe four) soloists in the form of Rich, Marie, Ben Pickard (??!!) and maybe even Wendy again (seriously contemplating it!)

Yet again, I am so proud of our club and the determination to showcase the talent, drive and dedication displayed by all within it. It really has been an honour to spend the weekend with you all!  [Shane]

A few of our favourite photos from the weekend are here.

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30th Aug 2015 – Badgers Atherstone 10k

Having got out of doing the extremely hilly League race at Hermitage by being in another country, I allowed myself to be talked in to entering the 2nd Badgers Atherstone 10k Road Race by Mr Jason Barton. As this was my first race over 5k for quite some time, I started scrawling through my old race times to come up with what I think I should achieve over a nice quick 10k course.

HOWEVER, the bullet that I dodged at Hermitage came back with a vengeance at Atherstone! The course has a lovely downhill/flat finish that takes up the last 2 miles, although the first 4 contains 20 metres MORE ascent than the ENTIRE course at Hermitage!!! Any dreams of quick times went out of the window, and were replaced with hopes of respectable times, followed by prayers of finishing!!!

Throughout the race, Jay was battling with Che Compton of Kent AC for the lead, with Jay gaining an advantage on the inclines and then immediately losing it on the descents. The long straight and flat finish through Atherstone town centre allowed for a true head-to-head battle. With half a mile to go, Jay was slightly ahead and managed to hold off his adversary to finish 10 seconds clear, and win the race.

Humble as ever, Jay stood around the finish area cheering people in and chatting with fellow runners, asking how they got on, but at no point disclosing that he had won the race in a course record time of 35.51.

Way back in the field of 367 runners, I too was having my own battles and winning them to eventually finish 42nd overall in a relatively satisfactory time of 44.29.

The church by the finish line were doing cups of tea/coffee for 50p and FREE CAKE!! Whilst inside, I happened to let slip to one elderly lady manning the tea stall that my accomplice was the overall race winner and we were then subjected to a 15 minute wave of praise as Jay was given a full hero’s welcome! He was asked about the course, asked about the club (which we advertised whole-heartedly), and was even asked for kisses by one of the old ladies present while introducing him to her daughter who had also ran.

During the presentation there was mass exasperation when Jay’s time was read out as 31.19 with everyone expecting some Kenyan to step forward to claim the £50 cash, £15 gift vouchers, and trophy (for some reason his time had BOTH been written down wrong AND then read out wrongly too).

The race pack at the end was brilliant with a technical tee, heavy medal, snacks, drinks, and L’Oreal for Men sample pots and Moisturiser testers. Not bad for the £14 it cost to enter. A very well organised race that has a testing course, but I will be returning to next year and would recommend it to anyone.  [Shane]

23 Aug 2015 – Carl Rutt Memorial 10k LRRL

Five Striders joined over 500 other runners in Whitwick for this year’s Hermitage 10k, this year renamed in tribute to one of the Hermitage Harriers’ closest friends and supporters.  The race was the penultimate event in this year’s Leicestershire Road Running League and this was reflected in the quality field competing.

First Strider home over the hilly course, continuing the great form shown recently, was Jason Barton in 7th place overall (6th male) in a time of 35.58.  Next Strider, and 4th junior male, was Luke Eggleston in 42.50, with Jon Wilson (48.01), Debs Wilson (60.29) and Stuart Gregory (63.06) completing the team.

2 July 2015 – Holme Pierrepont Grand Prix race 4

With all to play for, Jason and Stuart headed off to the National Watersports Centre for the final race in the series, which is a 10km road race around Holme Pierrepont Country Park. Going into the race Jason Barton sat 1m 04s behind 3rd place, and at the bottom of the table Stuart Gregory needed to make up 7m 30s to overhaul Karen Parkin, his main rival during the series.  Things started well for both Stuart and Jason with both making strong starts over the first 2km, with Jason making the most of a days rest closed the gap on his rivals, meanwhile towards the back of the pack Stuart was pushing hard with the job of finding seven and half minutes and by the half way point had opened up a gap in the region of 4 minutes.  At this point Jason was nearing the end of the 10km event and pushing hard to close the gap and move up in the overall standings. Jason crossed the finish line in a PB 35.03. 

Next back was Stuart who picked the pace up over the final few miles to finish in a seasons best 1hr 00m 30s. the wait was now on for both Jason and Stuart for their final finishing positions. Jason finished 5th overall @ 4m 58s behind the series winner and 1m 37s behind 3rd place. Stuart finished 1m 31s ahead of Karen Parkin of Woodthorpe unfortunately not enough to overhaul her substantial lead, Stuart finished 6m 02s behind Karen overall and moved up 20 places on the final day to finish 231st overall @2hr 7m 11s behind the leader. Big thank you to Shane for coming to support at the series grand final, always nice to see a few striders supporting the efforts of the fellow runners.  Also a big well done to the organisers, hopefully see a few more striders taking part at next year Grand Prix. [Stuart]

28 June 2015 – Tamworth Gate Gallop

Stuart Gregory was the only Strider to travel to the 30th Tamworth Gate gallop, a 10km cross country race, with the support of girl friend Natalie at the start and finish line.  As per normal Stuart started at the back of the 381 strong field and paced the first 2km at a steady pace, with so many runners and single track footpaths it was a given that times would be somewhat depressed unless you were to the front of the field.  Around the half way mark when the tracks became wider, many runners were able to put their foot down and make up for lost time early on.  At 6km it was the first couple of the stiles and, as there was no one around, both were jumped with ease, as 8km approached things got very slow again as a number of runners started to struggle with the next set of stiles. So it was off to 9km six minutes behind my PB for that course it was finally time to make some time up over the final 1km, which proved to be my fastest making two minutes up and overtaking a lot of runners in the final 400m, to finish in a expectedly slow time of 1hr 8m 27s. [Stuart]

21 June 2015 – Prestwold 10k (LRRL)

With so many races at this time of year, you could be forgiven for thinking that we might not get a great turnout for this fast, flat 10k – the latest round of the LRRL summer league.

However, it was great to see 18 Striders take their places on the start line, including a number of people making their league debut in the white and blue – we hope you all enjoyed it, especially those racing for the second time that morning! Thanks also to Ben and Laura for support round the course, and well done to the mini- Gray and Blythes in the fun run.

Around 650 runners in total (maybe more, as there were a few technology problems with the chip timing) enjoyed the sunshine, if not the breeze, and certainly most will have enjoyed the race memento by now (being a bottle of Barrow Runners branded beer…)

Jason Barton took his now traditional place as first Strider home in 36.27, with Darren Glover (39.59) following him over the line. A close battle then followed between Will Blythe (41.37 debut 10k, so PB!), Mark Stoneley (41.42 PB) and Luke Eggleston (42.08) just ahead of Andy Nicholls (43.05 PB).

Shane Sharkey (44.05), Rich Gray (44.12), Iain Howe (44.39) and Rob Beers (44.49) followed in close succession ahead of Michael Cooke (46.52), Tam Nicol (47.13) and John Houghton (47.55).

Helen Plant and Tony Allen pushed each other to sub-50 times (49.22 and 49.27 respectively – both PBs). Louise Houghton (52.34), Steph Barlow (58.02) and Stuart Gregory (time TBC) completed the Strider contingent.

Roll on the Hungarton 7 – Weds 1st July, and we even postpone our club run for the week so that Striders can attend! Entries on line (link via the Events Diary page).