Harriers of the Month and Chair’s Blog – June 2025

June is always a fantastic month for our club, and 2025 has been no exception! Read on for details of what we’ve been up to, including a fell challenge a year in the making and yet another brilliant Summer Mile! But first…

HARRIERS OF THE MONTH – JUNE 2025

Congratulations to our Harriers of the Month!

  • The Billy Bland Support and Organising Team (Laura Garratt, Richard Garratt, Cara Gates, James Tarbit, Lou Gardham, James Underwood and Richard Tasker) (multiple nominations):
    • For dedicating your weekend to ferrying around soggy, muddy and sleepy runners between legs of the Billy Bland relay challenge despite some antisocial hours, biblical weather and the usual treacherous Lakeland roads. You selflessly gave up your clean, dry vehicles to get everyone where they needed to be on time, and we’re incredibly grateful for it!
    • For giving up their time to act as road support for the Billy Bland Relay.
    • Over a year in the planning, the HPH Billy Bland was a huge success – a huge credit to Laura, Rich and Cara, whose organisation, planning and commitment made the whole thing possible!
    • Our incredible road support for the Billy Bland attempt – it wouldn’t have been possible for us to complete the relay without these four legends ferrying us to our handover points throughout the day and night. Thanks so much all!
    • Team Garratt did a phenomenal job of organising the Billy Bland relay. From organising the logistics, to leading recce days, they opened the door and made proper fell running accessible and inserted some amazing Lakes adventures into the training calendar. The support crew were also incredible, getting runners to the start positions and providing a warm welcome for them on arrival – whether that be through warm layers or sandwiches.
  • Dan Stevenson (multiple nominations):
    • Bossed it with a pb leeds 10k
    • First an outstanding sub 36 pb at Leeds 10k, followed up by a super impressive sub 5 at the Summer mile.  Dan has been training very hard for sometime and its really paying off.  I expect to see him on the PECO scoresheet come November.  Well done Dan! We’re proud of you
    • An amazing sub36 PB for Dan at Leeds 10K! Nice one mate!
    • Dan ran superbly at the recent Leeds 10k. Despite it being a fairly undulating course he exceeded his personal expectations by dipping below 36 minutes consequently smashing his 10k pb by one minute. All the training that had occurred in the lead up to this race certainly paid dividends. Fantastic running, Dan – keep it up!

Well done to all our nominees, copied below:

  • Ally Fellows – Ally’s phenomenal training, hard work and discipline have been inspirational for months now, and it was fantastic to see it pay off for him at Hamburg Ironman. Despite a few technical hitches, he absolutely smashed the race! Well done Ally!
  • Coralie Bell – Congratulations to Coralie on her victory at the Hull 10K!
  • Dan Allison – For producing an excellent pb performance at Leeds 10k – the hardwork and graft is truly paying off – superb stuff.
  • Gordon Crawford – Gordon set a new VM70 10 mile club record and couldn’t have picked a much tougher course to do it! The Otley 10 is a beast but Gordon tamed it – well done sir!
  • Helen Noyes – Helen’s completion of the full 36 laps of Around the Park, Around the Clock was absolutely brilliant! Through sun, rain and wind, she just kept going – well done Helen!
  • Jonny Spain – For pure insanity really taking the night shift on the Billy Bland relay in rough conditions, hop skipping back to Leeds shaking out on the Saturday and then pacing 40 mins for Leeds 10K on Sunday.
  • Laura Garratt (multiple nominations):
    • Epic work organising the Billy bland relay, all whilst injured herself.
    • Incredible organisation of the Billy Bland Relay!
    • For being the drive behind the scenes of the fantastic Billy Bland weekend, being a spreadsheet queen and making sure all involved were ok / prepared in the process
  • Mike Gallagher – Mike finished a speedy Roundhay parkrun on a blisteringly hot day, then, despite having a busy day planned, assisted a blind runner on the final lap. Certainly not the first time he’s shown himself to be an absolute legend!
  • Richard Garratt – Rich had been managing a couple of injuries relatively sensibly (for once), timing wise it was frustrating as he had the Keswick Mountain Festival Skiddaw fell race coming up. However, with his hamstring strapped up he decided to give it a go and see what happened. Well his hamstring was alright for most of the race and he managed to place 9th overall and came 2nd in his age category. Amazing result considering the lack of ability to train coming up to the race and even up to the day before was unsure if he would start. On top of this on his first evening back at the club, after 2 months off with injuries he led a group. I know from experience it can be tough doing that after time away so thanks Rich.
  • Sam Townson – A great run to 2nd place at the ABC!
  • The Billy Bland Relay Team – Finished the full Bob Graham Round in 22:36:31 (well under 24hrs), in some incredibly challenging conditions!
  • The Summer Mile Committee – The Summer Mile 2025 was a huge success, thanks as ever to the efforts of our brilliant Summer Mile Committee. Thanks for everything you do folks!

Your humble scribe was also very grateful for the nominations relating to Around the Park, Around the Clock – very kind, and I’m very glad folks continue to enjoy it!

THANK YOU!

A huge thank you to all our leaders this month – Adam L, Alice H, Amy R-Y, Ben H, Caite B, Cat M, Chris H, Chrissy D, Clare E, Daisy W, Ellie W, George A, Honor B, Joe L, Jonathan S, Lisa B, Lorraine B, Lucy R, Mike G, Naomi A, Oliver I, Richard G and Will D!

If you’d like to give leading a go, speak to any of our existing leaders or committee members and we’ll give you all the support and help you need.

HIGHLIGHTS OF JUNE 2025

  • Three Harriers took part in the Bradford 10K, including Cat M who paced 70 minutes – well done all!
  • The fifth edition of Around the Park, Around the Clock saw more than 60 Harriers and friends complete at least one lap of Woodhouse Moor, with nine of us completing the full 12 hours! The weather mostly held up (we don’t talk about the 2pm set…) and it was another cracking day in the park – thank you once again to everyone who turns up and joins in the madness!
  • The always-popular Otley Chevin Fell Race saw seventeen Harriers take on the short but extremely hilly course – nice work folks!
  • Coralie won the Hull 10K with a fantastic 37:14!
  • Thanks to the HPH leaders who continued our new collaboration with Paria in Chapel Allerton – sounds like everyone had a great time! Keep an eye on our social media for details of the next Sunday morning runs.
  • A dozen of us headed to Headingley to watch Yorkshire v Leicestershire in a T20 double-header. Although the weather didn’t always co-operate, we got to see Yorkshire victories for both the women’s and men’s teams; cracking stuff! Big thanks to Grace for organising a really fun social!
  • We were back at Otley mid-month for a longer but just as brutal race – the Otley 10 Mile! An extremely warm evening and the frankly bonkers Leathley hills made for interesting racing – well done everyone who took on the course! Great to see four Harriers in the top 15 finishers too, as well as new veteran record for Gordon!
  • Half a dozen Harrier veterans took part in the third race of this season’s YVAA Grand Prix at Queensbury!
  • We had three Harriers take on the Shadwell 10K, with Tom M taking the silver medal (and Emily heroically donating her watch to Tom for the race – that’s true love right there folks)!
  • With Leeds 10K running through our home turf, it would be rude not to have a good HPH turnout and the club didn’t disappoint! Well done to everyone who ran, and thanks to those who volunteered as pacers!
  • Over a year in the planning, mid-June saw nearly 30 Harriers descend (or should that be ascend?) on the Lake District for our Billy Bland relay. 66 miles, 42 peaks, 22 hours and 36 minutes later, our Leg 5 team closed the loop in Keswick. Every single team smashed their respective legs (in some cases quite literally…) despite the weather being somewhat less than ideal (understatement of the year)…
  • The YVAA races kept on coming, and HPH continued to turn out in force! Well done to the eight veterans who took part in the Morley Grand Prix!
  • The longest day of the year saw 14 Harriers enjoy the Solstice Saunter, despite the heat and flies – well done to all!
  • Our very own Summer Mile was a huge success – a beautiful sunny evening, some ludicrously fast racing, lots of PBs and lots of fun! A massive thank you to everyone who helped make the event happen; great to see so many Harriers volunteering at the event and a special thanks to our Summer Mile Committee, who put incredible amounts of effort into organising and hosting the event each year!
  • Seven Harriers charged up Beamsley Beacon and back down again – the fell race champs are heating up in every sense! Nice work folks!
  • We also had several folk at Endure24 in Leeds this year, taking on the five mile loop as many times as possible in 24 hours. It would be great to get loads of us there next year – watch this space…
  • We rounded off the month with another YVAA Grand Prix race – this time at Pudsey. Well done everyone who ran!

A cracking month for the club – well done to everyone, and massive thanks to the folks who contribute to making all the amazing stuff we do happen! There’s plenty more to come as summer continues!