Calderdale Way Relay – Hyde Park Harriers

Sunday 19th May and it was the Calderdale Way Relay which is Britain’s biggest club run off road event. The actual Calderdale Way is 50 mile long footpath in West Yorkshire.

The relay is split into 6 legs and you run as a pair on each leg.

36 Hyde Park Harriers (3 teams) took on the relay but to be fair the build up for this started a while ago with many doing a recce or 2 of the legs they were on. All runners made it safely round and the A team got the baton through all the legs which is a great achievement. They got round in 7 hours 9 minutes and 30 seconds. The team was made up of –

Leg 1 – Adam Lomas and George Anderson
Leg 2 – Steve Rhodes and Amy Young
Leg 3 – Paul Sawyer and Farhad Hamad
Leg 4 – Michael Vargas and Scott Watson
Leg 5 – Gus Milne and Mike Gallagher
Leg 6 – Philip Goose and Andrew Carrier

The Hyde Park Harriers ladies team came home in 73rd with a total time of 9 hours 17 minutes and 56 seconds –

Leg 1 – Jo Rhodes and Ellen Sharpe
Leg 2 – Dote Stone and Laura Hastings
Leg 3 – Clare Maxwell and Sarah Farnell
Leg 4 – Rebecca Gray and Naomi Kellett
Leg 5 – Naomi Adkins and Sarah Markless
Leg 6 – Nicola Forwood and Clare Slorach

The Hyde Park Harries mixed team weren’t far behind in 75th and a time of 9 hours 24 minutes and 55 seconds with a special mention to Clare Evans who only stepped into the team on Friday –

Leg 1 – Curtis Broadhead and Paul Dickens
Leg 2 – Robin Culshaw and Robin Groves
Leg 3 – Richard Edwards and Paul Farmery
Leg 4 – Nichola Moreland and Graeme Miles
Leg 5 – Ellie Coleman and Clare Evans
Leg 6 – Rick Pullan and John Hayes

Its not just about the runners on this event as many get involved in the recce’s and ferrying people around and it really is a big team effort of which the club is grateful.

Few comments from runners post event –

Paul Farmery – Farhad became the first Harrier to start a relay leg from the portaloo queue after Steve and Amys lung busting leg 2. The rest of us trundled off with the mass start being released when the green man hit the main road. Leg 3 is only 5 miles but most of that is spent travelling upwards. A massive climb, a nice long descent then some rolling ups and downs across fields, past waterfalls, ostriches and through a very dry bog. We bagged 1200 ft of altitude and some very lovely cake at the end.

Naomi Adkins – Sarah Markless and I had a great run on leg 5 today, we even got beer! Took 40mins off our recce time, and blitzed the downhills!

Farhad Hamad – Yeah another crazy one here to say loved it despite the funny start, my second time to do leg 3 and it’s short but a tough one, they’re all tough and fun in their own ways, always great to be part of the team, everyone ran amazingly well to have managed to get the baton round, great achievement for the club and congratulations to ourselves on that. Massive thanks to all organisers, all the drivers, all the supporters and anybody who helped and made it happen, it just doesn’t happen without you lot. Can I also thank Paul Sawyer for driving me there and back and Paul Farmery for offering to drive me back.

Mike Gallagher – A thoroughly top day out and very proud once again to be part of such a great club. Really enjoyed running with Gus and thanks everyone for making it happen.

Paul Dickens – So Curtis Broadhead and I were on leg 1 for the mixed team. I completely ruled out getting the baton around at the start and felt rough all the way around (Curtis did not get much conversation) but Curtis pushed me on so that in the last couple of km it looked like it might just about be doable. Just is the right word, even going flat out on the last downhill Curtis pulled away from me and gave the Robins advance warning whilst I had to put in a sprint finish to make handover with between 4 and 8 seconds to spare (pretty sure it was 4, official results say 8).

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