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

This month we returned to The Edge for both Tuesday and Thursday sessions and saw some amazing performances from Hyde Park Harriers as the world of running starts to look slightly more like we remember it from old! We had performances at Leeds Half Marathon and 10km, a team performance (well, two teams!) at Calderdale Way Relays, HPH at the Kirkstall 7 miler, loads of you running the Great North Run… and some triathlons, too. Well done to everyone racing or training this month – so awesome to see so many red and white vests out and about.

In October, we are looking forward to starting to get back into winter running: on that note, please don’t forget to wear high vis clothing to sessions. We are also planning our return to PECO: our cross country league. We will be announcing our PECO captains later this month and will also be starting to organise some trail/cross country familiarisation sessions – so dig and clean out those musty mudclaws ready to go into battle with our fellow Leeds run club friends!

With such awesome performances and so much club training activity, it was a difficult month to vote on Harrier of the Month with hot competition for both performance and commitment to the club. The committee has voted, however, and your winners this month are: Clare Slorach and Curtis Broadhead!

Curtis, known to many of you as your Thursday night Strength and Speed leader, is the very well-deserving recipient of this month’s award. Curtis has spent his last 3 Thursdays leading some huge groups on a Thursday night. Curtis is one of the club’s coaches, and has put so much effort into getting us back to the much-valued Thursday night sessions. Thanks Curtis, and well done to all of your for attending and making the sessions so fun (and ouchy, but we love it a few days later!).

Clare Slorach was nominated under the Chair’s award category for her fantastic performance at the Leeds Half marathon. Not only did Clare produce a stonking time of 1:28:27, she also won the race! Congratulations Clare – and best of luck at the London Marathon this weekend.

This month, our other nominations went to:

• Rupert Jordan – for two shiny new PBs: 16:46 at WHM parkrun and 1:17:11 at the Great North Run.
• Danni Bryant & Jonathan Spain – for organising 2 teams to represent HPH at the Calderdale Way Relay.
• Richard Edwards &Vicky Houghton – for a HUGE day out running the North Leeds Ultra Marathon
• Naomi Miles – for perfectly following a training plan and then executing it fantastically at the Outlaw X Half Ironman

Finally a quick, timely, shout out to all the HPHs running the London Marathon this weekend. Run well, and we will see you on the TV!

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 the 17th October at 6pm. – make sure you get in touch with any agenda points before then.

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