HPH Chair’s Blog and Harrier of the Month for February

Despite being the shortest month, you HPHers sure did pack in loads of fun and racing in February. It’s been absolutely fantastic to read about everyone’s exploits. From the return of the Leeds 5km series to the Dewsbury 10km and Snake Lane 10 mile, to the culmination of our PECO campaign, Harriers have been running whatever the weather and doing us proud with some incredible team and personal achievements.

Over the next few months, we will get back into that less-than-familiar but oh-so-awesome routine of running and training for those longer races. You’ll see a few Sunday long runs happening, and we can’t wait to see our Facebook page alive with race results and those red and white vests out and about across the country and the world.

Don’t forget that May sees the start of our competition year. All the races are available on our website under the relevant headings and competition rules are there, too. Our competitions are open to HPH members, which opened this week. You can get yourself membership for the bargain price of £21, as opposed to £26 after April 1st! If you’re joining for the first time, that’s £41 to include your vest. We will also be announcing our competition and competition formats for the 2022/2023 year – look out on your emails or send us a message for more details.

It would have been an unfair month for everyone else nominated in February (a whole army of you!) if we didn’t have a bumper edition this month. As a result, this month’s winners of Harrier of the Month are Adam Lomas, Danny Clayton, and, obviously: the PECO Captains: Laura Garratt, Anne Akers and Mike Vargas! This team, made up of Laura: ladie’s captain, Anne: vet’s captain and Mike: men’s captain, excited us when they nominated themselves in 2021 as we knew they’d be a dream team. I can safely say that this terrific trio surpassed any expectation and not only smashed their captaincy’s out of the park, they also led our teams to our best results ever! Thank you for all your hard work, there is so much that goes in both in front of and behind the scenes and we are forever grateful (and still muddy and cold!).

Men’s team – 1st

Women’s team – 2nd

Men’s Vets – 1st

Women’s vets – 2nd

Read more about our PECO history and results on our blog.

Adam was nominated, not just for February, but for the last 2 years. Adam has trained and trained and trained and now he is destroying everything in his path. He got under 34 minutes at Dewsbury and his performances in all 5 rounds of PECO were key to the ‘success and culminated in 4th in the individual PECO rankings. The man is on fire!

Danny was nominated, having been injured for most if the winter, and coming back better then ever. He had an outstanding final round of PECO, got himself shiny new PBs at Dewsbury 10k and Brownlee 5k and has successfully made the step up to group 8. That kid is going places!

There were absolutely tonnes of nominations this month, so the competition was hot! Other nominees were:

• John Pratt – for sub 40 minutes at Dewsbury 10km, achieving his personal goal for the distance!
• Anna Stocks – for absolutely smashing Dewsbury 10km and achieving that magical sub-40minute 10km time. Well done Anna!
• Naomi Miles – Her inspirational performance increase over the past few months. This is consistent across her running, cycling and swimming by achieving course records in the club’s Zwift championship and getting a notable FTP increase too. Bring on 2022 for Naomi!
• Jon Spain – for an incredible PB run at Dewsbury 10km and for all the Jonathan has done, working hard with the local community (North Brewing Co.) to encourage others to get into running, while also arranging a successful first long Sunday run session. He has also helped me progress into leading, and is always so helpful and positive. He is an overall credit to the club, and we are lucky to have him.
• Amy Ramsden Young and Tom Thomas – for pacing at Dewsbury 10km. Things like this can make all the difference to people wanting that market on the course to aim for. These two did it with all the smiles and encouragement you’d expect from two lovely legends!
• Jon Coade – for two amazing PBs just one week apart: 37:00 at Dewsbury 10km and 1:21:40 at Half Marathon! Brilliant work
• HPH Men’s PECO team – For the first time in HPH club history, the men were victorious in PECO 2021/2022 championship. PECO captain for the season was the very able Mike Vargas who effectively ensured the strongest team possible were present for each of the five races as well as providing plenty of motivation. Each race presented its challenges from going the wrong direction at Middleton to rain and copious amount of mud at Roundhay. Despite these obstacles, all competed hard with 100% commitment being demonstrated alongside plenty of camaraderie and support which resulted in the club being crowned champions for 2021/2022 cross country season. This is an outstanding achievement which everyone contributed to so we should be rightly proud of it. Whilst very much a collective effort, of particular mention:- Ben Douglas – competed at three and won all three races. Adam Lomas – Ranked 4th overall George Anderson – Ranked 9th overall Mike Vargas – Ranked 11th overall
• Nicola Forwood – Completing a ‘run the date’ challenge during February, with the requirement increasing by a kilometre each day up to the 28th. It was exhausting just reading the list!
• Karly stringer – Karly chopped a phenomenal 5 MINUTES off her PB at Dewsbury, an amazing achievement!
• Kay and Trevor – On top of their enormous contributions to the club over lots of years, their wedding picture cheered so many of us up from the constantly dreadful things in the world that I thought it would be nice to repay that by celebrating them as a club.
• Michael Vargas – Along with other Team Captains, Mike has updated runners exhaustively on a weekly basis on PECO, crunched data and literally cheered and met every runner over the line in Roundhay. The classiest kind of leadership.

As always, keep an eye out on the weekly bulletin emails and in the Facebook group for more information about races, discounts, sessions and club activity. If you have any ideas for sessions, any feedback or want to organise a social or event, please get in touch with the committee by emailing hello@hydeparkharriers.co.uk or messaging one of us directly on Facebook. You know who we are. But if you don’t, you can find out here. Our next meeting is March 6^th at 6pm – make sure you send us anything for discussion before then.

Don’t forget you can submit any future HPH of the Month nominations at any time of the month/year at this link.