HPH Chair’s Update and Harrier of the Month for August

My favourite part of the month, where we get to review another month of awesome challenges set by our fantastic members and volunteers and some incredible achievements from Hyde Park Harriers. This month’s events have seen Hyde Park Harriers (and friends) climbing to lofty heights in the continuing Everest challenge, the start of our very own Couch to 5km, loads of sessions in parks across the city and 141 parkruns across 20 venues in 1 weekend!

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Hyde Park Harriers across the country parkrunning in our August festival of parkrun weekend!

Whilst, as a team, we have achieved so much, there are also individuals who have contributed significantly to the club, or their own running this month. It gives me great pleasure to announce that the winners of the Hyde Park Harrier of the month for August are John Pratt and Jaz Bangerh! Well done to you both, great job on all your achievements. Read on for more about why these Harriers have been recognised this month….

The male competition was won by John Pratt for vEveresting, for leading the Couch to 5km, for achieving so much in his running, swimming and cycling since he joined Hyde Park Harriers and generally making time for everyone in the club. John has been absolutely instrumental to several club member’s motivation levels over lockdown, ensuring that we are Zwifting, running or attending quizzes – and always doing it with a smile and a great level of care. Thanks JP, for everything you continue to do for the club. If you want to get involved with the next cohort of Couch to 5km (Kay) please get in touch below.

JP and his colour coordinated Couch to 5km (Kay) group

The female winner this month is Jaz Bangerh. Jaz has started back running after having an operation on her ankle just before lockdown. She started run walking but over the past few weeks has been running the whole 5k and knocking big chunks of time off each time. Jaz has also returned to run club after a long time away and seems to be back enjoying all her running which is just what we like to see. Welcome back Jaz!

Here is a list of everyone that was nominated this month. Thanks, and well done to all of you for everything you have done and achieved.

  • Laura Garratt for training for and running her first half marathon having always said she’d never run more than 10km. Well done Laura!
  • Jack Rose for completing his 50km race in the Swiss Alps as well as an incredible week of climbing mountains. He did it just in the nick of time to get back in the UK with no quarantine needed. Great job Jack.
  • Toby Adkins for organising an amazing annual parkrun weekend once again, but with even more logistical / health and safety considerations this time! What an awesome number of parkruns you all achieved – additional kudos to all of you that ran.
  • Steve Brown for completing 10 parkruns in 1 weekend!
  • Ellie Coleman for completing all the Leeds parkruns in one weekend in a carnival fancy dress outfit and motivating us and making us all smile!

As usual, just a reminder that the date of the next HPH Committee meeting is September 13th where we will be changing how sessions are run for members and friends as the evenings start to get darker and colder. We will also be doing a big piece of strategy work, looking into the future of our awesome run club. Don’t forget to get in touch ahead of this date if you have anything for discussion.

Finally, keep an eye out on the weekly bulletins and in the Facebook group for more information about virtual races, our weekly sessions, updates on competitions and, most importantly, don’t forget to log into Spond every week to sign up for a club session. Details on how to join us in these sessions is here.

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