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

A really busy month for Harriers! The final PECO of the season and the concluding races of our 24/25 championships, plus loads of records being broken – read on below!

HARRIERS OF THE MONTH – MARCH 2025

Congratulations to our Harriers of the Month!

  • Jonathan Spain – An absolutely incredible run at Barcelona marathon, running a 2:43 time… Jonny’s trained so hard and so consistently for this, it’s brilliant to see it pay off!
  • Richard Knighton, Charlotte Eva and Dan Donnelly (multiple nominations):
    • Thank you to our PECO captains for doing a brilliant job promoting the races to our members and getting great numbers out for this year’s races – great job folks!
    • Thanks to our wonderful captains for this PECO season

Well done to all our nominees, copied below:

  • Adam Lomas – 1:10:38 for a half marathon?! Oh for goodness sake.
  • Cat McGuire – Cat passed her cirf exam having been leading and coaching club sessions regularly for a while, and the sessions have had great feedback from members too. Well done!
  • Clare Evans – Big thanks to Clare for organising and leading a brilliant headtorch run from Kirkstall Forge – really enjoyed the route, with some fantastic little-known paths!
  • Craig Morland – Despite an injury setback, Craig managed to complete the notoriously gruelling Spen 20 – very well done sir!
  • Daisy Wales – An incredible 4 minute PB at the Sheffield Half – tough course, tougher runner!
  • Douglas Blackwood, Amy Ramsden-Young and Mike Vargas – Our victorious club representative PECO team! Well done all – doing the club very proud! Special shout-out to Doug who has absolutely stormed his first PECO series, very impressive!
  • George Fidczuk – Congrats to George on completing the Haworth Hobble 50K, in under six hours no less!
  • Honor Baldry – Brilliant Snake Lane 10 race
  • Ian Martinson – For being a brilliant participant in the parkrun championships and PECO races despite not living in Leeds!
  • Julie Robson – Building up her training to run Snake Lane 10 recently – and sticking to her plan!
  • Kevin Longmate (multiple nominations):
    • Kevin just smashed the Chester 50 miler – he’s been putting in so much work towards this race. Well done Kevin! We’re all so proud of you!
    • Congratulations to Kev for completing the Chester 50K ultra, smashing his target time along the way!
  • Lisa Brannan (multiple nominations):
    • Congratulations to Lisa on completing the club’s recent Couch to 5K programme!
    • Lisa has stuck with the couch to 5k sessions, attending 9 out of 10 Tuesday runs and getting her own progress runs done during the week. She’s made excellent progress back to running after some big setbacks last year.
  • Naomi Adkins – Thank you to Naomi for preparing and organising the club’s recent Couch to 5K programme, including leading the ten sessions.
  • Will Sykes – Congrats to Will for a brilliant new PB at the York 5K series, well under 18 minutes!

THANK YOU!

A huge thank you to all our leaders this month – Alice H, Ben H, Cat M, Chrissy D, Clare E, Daisy W, Dan D, Ed S, Eliza T-F, Ellie W, Honor B, Jane P, Jonathan S, Kevin L, Laura G, Lorraine B, Michael G, Mike G, Mike V, Naomi A, Olly H, Paul S, Richard C, Richard G and Samantha T!

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 MARCH 2O25

  • The re-arranged Stockeld Park cross country race saw more than 50 Harriers descend on Wetherby to see off the PECO season in style! The new course for the PECO series turned out to be a lot of fun and a great venue for our runners, with the men’s team closing out their overall season win with another team victory!
  • The PECO relays had a great Harrier turn-out, with 10 HPH teams of three runners sprinting around Bramley Fall park. Cracking performances all round, with Amy, Doug and Mike winning the club representative race!
  • We also had a cracking night out at the PECO Awards, celebrating an awesome season for HPH!
  • The weather in the Lake District isn’t known for being kind to runners, but our Billy Bland recce couldn’t have asked for better when we took on Leg 2 of the Bob Graham route. Beautiful sunshine and stunning views more than made up for some gruelling climbs…
  • Abdu and Coralie headed south to take on the Cambridge Half Marathon, both running excellent times!
  • George F and Rich C took on the Haworth Hobble – 50km around Calderdale, with more than 1,500m of climbing!
  • Clare E led our final headtorch run of the winter, this time venturing into Hawksworth Woods and Bramley Fall Park. It’s been a lot of fun stumbling around in the dark over the last six months – huge thank you to everyone who’s led a headtorch run; we’ll be bringing them back when the nights draw in again!
  • We had a small crew of Harriers take on the York 5K series, with some new PBs!
  • Kev L absolutely smashed the Chester 50K in under 11 hours; a brilliant effort!
  • Jonny S set a blisteringly fast new PB at Barcelona marathon; extremely well-earned!
  • Wakefield Hospice 10K saw a good HPH turnout on a sunny spring morning, well done everyone!
  • Chris J set a new VM65 record at Thirsk 10 Mile – excellent work!
  • The final race of the fell race championships, the wonderfully-named Chevin is BS, saw Lou G take the VF45 win, and Callum S come fourth overall! Well done all!
  • Sunday 23 March was a day of more than two halves! HPH represented at Sheffield, Wilmslow and Liverpool, with some cracking runs all over the country! Kudos to everyone who ran, especially those who set new PBs! And Adam got a new club record of 1:10:38… Terrifying.
  • Our final road race of the 25/26 championships was the notorious Spen 20 – 20 miles of hills and struggle! Very well done to everyone who braved the race!
  • We also had another successful Billy Bland recce towards the end of the month – this time taking on the final leg from Honister back to Keswick. As ever, thank you to Rich, Laura and Cara for organising and leading our recess – can’t wait for the relay itself!
  • Seven fine Harrier chaps took on the March edition of the Leeds 5K series – three (and a bit) laps of the Brownlee track never gets any shorter!
  • Our fearless President, Amy R-Y, absolutely smashed the Tenerife Bluetrail 73K ultra – a fantastic effort!
  • We rounded off the month with the Vale of York 10 Mile and 5 Mile races – despite the windy conditions, Adam L set yet another club record in the former, and Chris J and Gordon C set new veteran records in the latter!

Well done to everyone, what a month! As ever, apologies if I’ve missed anything – looking forward to another fantastic month in April!