Harrier Of The Month – July

It’s time to award our second ever Harrier Of The Month awards – as promised we will alternate and this month we will start with the women’s award.

First of all though, we have had fewer nominations come in for July, so if there are any Harriers that are really standing out as deserving a nomination in August, then please get your nominations in! Remember, these can be for anything – they can be for running achievement or improvement, something that has been done or put on to improve what we do at Hyde Park Harriers, or something amazing (that’s vaguely related to running) outside of Hyde Park Harriers. If you’re not sure if it’s worthy of a nomination, pop it in anyway and we’ll decide!

Harrier Of The Month – Women’s Award

The women’s Harrier Of The Month award for July goes to somebody who pushed last month’s award winner very close for the June award – Robyn Johnson. Last month Robyn was nominated for her continued improvement in her running including a long run streak – and when Robyn continued to be nominated in July (including keeping that streak going!), topped off with completing the ultra marathon Race to the Stones, we couldn’t look beyond Robyn. As the winner this month Robyn exemplifies one of the things that we love at Hyde Park Harriers – finding joy through running, and not only that but a joy and enthusiasm which is infectious to all around her.

Another impressive achievement this month on our triathlon side was Naomi Kellet for qualifying for the Team GB age group side at the 2020 World Triathlon Championships for her performance on the streets of Leeds.

Also nominated this month were Laura Garratt for coming back from injury after a serious injury, running her further distance at the York 10K (running with her sister), and also consistently leading groups on Tuesday nights, and has been brilliant with leading large groups including many beginner runners, and doing all of this with a smile on her face. Sarah Underwood was also nominated for the Saltaire Stampede – an unusual format meaning that runners had to complete the distance within a certain amount of time, but the last person to cross the line and finish within the time would win. The winning prize was a keg of beer, so we don’t know if that helped to motivate Sarah…

Harrier Of The Month – Men’s Award

Like with the women’s award, Harrier Of The Month for men in July goes to a Harrier who pushed last month’s winner very close and is awarded as a culmination of a long period of improvement and achievement – Harrier Of The Month for men is Mike Vargas. Mike has continued his amazing – which is now becoming the norm for him rather than a ‘purple patch’. He has continued to run amazing times at our club championship and local races, and at the Firefighter’s 5 (which admittedly was at the very beginning of August…), Mike put out the club 5 mile record that he broke last month. Not only that but Mike has stepped up to lead group 8 recently while your author has been a bit out of form…

Also nominated for some amazing running achievements was the indomitable Steve Rhodes. Steve was nominated for representing the Hyde Park Harrier vest in ‘places it has never been’. His latest achievements this month have included the Lavaredo Ultra Trail 120K, taking part in a leg of the Bob Graham Round, and completing the Charlie Ramsay Round. In fact, it’s testament to how ‘normal’ those achievements are for Steve that he isn’t on the top of the Harrier Of The Month podium this month!

Congratulations to our two award winners this month and to everyone nominated. As mentioned we would love to see more nominations for August so get clicking on the nomination form in your weekly email!

Happy running!

Phil Fisher

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