Tadcaster Harriers Running Club

Race Report: LDWA - The Elsecar Skelter

Author: Dave Baxter   |  Aug 5, 2018

I did another LDWA event last Saturday ‘The Elsecar Skelter’ a ‘trail Marathon’ (27miles) with 3000ft climbing and some very large nettles and briers. Perhaps due to the ‘non-elite’ field I came back in 1st place, 24 minutes ahead of 2nd place. Rewarded with a sew on badge and Pie n Peas. The LDWA events are well worth doing, really good value (this was £15 inc 5 well stocked checkpoints)

Beginners Group

Author: Mark Swinden   |  Jul 27, 2018

It was the final session for the Beginners Group last night and to mark the occasion there was a bit of a get together for a drink and a chat. There was also a bit of a surprise .... 

Take a look at this beautiful  quilted version of the Harriers logo which was made by Fay Harrison from the beginners' group and which she presented to us at the final session last night. This is going to look fantastic adorning the trophy table at the club dinner. 

Fay has joined the Harriers and there are 15 runners from this years beginners' group who have joined or are in the process of joining, which is just brilliant.

Here is Faye at work .. so clever !

Race Report: LDWA Afoot in 2 Dales-The Yorkshire 50

Author: Stephen King   |  Jul 11, 2018

On one of the hottest weekends of the year most of us took things very easy - a few beers, BBQ, watch the football, etc. A few of the more energetic amongst us managed a parkrun - good effort in the heat. Some even more foolhardy souls ("I've entered so I'm doing it!") ran 10k races in York, Leeds and Castle Howard. Some even managed a hilly 7 mile race at Kilburn. And then there's Dave Baxter .....  

In his own words, here is what Dave got up to:

I ran the LDWA Afoot in 2 Dales-The Yorkshire 50 at the weekend. A very hot and scenic 50 miles through Wensleydale and Swaledale. Came in 2nd place in a time of 10 hours 56 minutes. About 10 litres of water drunk, 2 ice creams and a lot of stream dunkings! This is on the back of PB’s in the summer road league, a 5th in the Dukeries 40 and 8th at the Hardmoors White Horse "Marathon"... all is coming together nicely towards the Robin Hood 100 in September raising funds for the MS Society.

What a remarkable run !

As he says above, Dave is planning to run the Robin Hood 100 in September and is using the preparation and the event to raise funds for the MS Society, You can visit Dave's fundraising page here: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/daveb-robinhood100 

Endure 24 - Leeds

Author: Dave Mullaney   |  Jul 2, 2018

"The strength of the team is each member. The strength of each member is the team.” Phil Jackson (Retired NBA basketball coach)

I thought of that quote over the weekend as we were well into this years Endure 24 event at Bramham Park. Every member of the Harriers that took part gave their all from first lap to the last, and the camaraderie of the team could easily have brought a tear to my eye! Many runners pushed themselves to the limit and ran farther and longer than they have done previously, in conditions that runners would normally have shied away from.

We entered the Cotswold 24 hour event last year not really knowing how well we could do, and whether we would enjoy it. The reality was that we were more competitive than we imagined, and it was the momentum from that event that created the interest from club members to enter the Endure 24 event this year.

There is a definite advantage to having a 24 hour event right on our doorstep in that more club members are interested in attending the event, and we get more supporters along to take in the atmosphere and cheer us on. This and the momentum from last year’s event resulted in the club being able to enter four teams at this year’s event: 

‘The Mo Farriers’ Led by Andy Sloan, were our best hope for a podium finish, with some of our faster runners (Scott Hayes, Alex Young, Simon Tordoff and Craig Redmond) planning to run 40 laps over the 24 hour period.

‘Taddy Tastic Ladies’ Captained By Celia McRoyall, supported by Jo Millican, Pip Freer, Liz Mould, Sue Tindall, Angela Wray, Emma Dunn and Becky McGuinness. We put this team together after seeing previous results from other events and realised we had a chance with these talented ladies to potentially be one of the top placing teams!

‘Beer drinkers with a running problem’ were our first team of mixed runners (there for the occasion and a good time!....oh and some running) led by Elspeth Bartlet with Mark Swinden, Keith Smith, Paul Dykes, Emma Triffit, Amanda Apperley, Shirley Steele and Laura Pemberton as team members.

‘Half a bottle of Prosecco and a packet of chocolate Hobnobs’ The name was the inspiration of Abi Carter, so you can tell what her favourite tipple is! It also got a few mentions over the weekend from the race commentator especially with the hot weather, ‘keeping the prosecco on ice’ and ‘not letting the hobnobs melt!’ Anyway, captained by Dave Mullaney, ably supported by Dave Rowe, Ian Saynor, Abi Carter, Elaine Kavanagh, Gail Jamieson, Sarah Cairns and Lisa Sharpe.

We also cannot forget that the club’s ‘man of steel’, Jon Steele was running the solo event. After suffering at last year’s event, he was on a mission to get over one hundred miles over the 24 hour period. Having recently completed the Coast to Coast race, he was definitely on form and capable, it would come down to the weather, nutrition, hydration and his mental state (not much hope then J) over the 24 hours!

So how did we do?

The Mo Farriers were relentless in their pursuit of a podium finish. A team of five fast runners meant that you only had slightly over two hours between laps. As a result that meant that there were few opportunities to grab some relaxation time and ensure you were adequately fed and watered. It was a tough weekend for them so many kudos from us all that they kept their form and composure in a tough and very competitive category to finish third. The top three teams were so close that over the weekend we were at times in first, second or third place. In the end we finished in third place! As you can see from the photos, Mo Farrier was there himself, and clearly excited to be there (too excited!)

The ‘elite’ team of ladies second place was never in doubt after Saturday evening. A strong and consistent performance from them all meant that they had a sizeable gap between them and the third placed team. It was so good to see them on the podium at the end for their second place trophy 

Meanwhile the other two teams had some internal competition with Ian Saynor for the Prosecco team and Paul Dykes from the beer drinkers having their own competition of matching their lap count! Both teams did really well with considering we were there purely for the enjoyment, with the Beer Drinkers coming 37th out of 83 teams and the Prosseco guzzlers coming 20th !  Well done to them all. It has to be said that a number of the runners in our teams had never run as much in a 24 hour period (or run in the middle of the night), and pushed themselves when they thought they could do no more. The conditions were not conducive to running, with the route being exposed to the hot sun, but looking at the consistency of the lap times they all were amazing.

Meanwhile, Jon Steele battled on. It is amazing to see the solo runners out on the course, slogging away lap after lap, and even giving us praise for doing well. So it was good to see Jon occasionally, and give him some encouragement!. Being a big guy, running in heat is not easy, but he was on a mission to complete 20 laps. He looked better at night time (I am sure many have said that before!) with the cooler weather making him stronger. We are pleased to say that Jon completed his mission and was one of only 21 males to reach that distance, finishing 16th overall out of 114 entries! By the way…Jon’s fastest lap was 45 minutes!

Overall an excellent result for the club in more ways than one! The social side to the weekend is every bit as important as the running and ask anyone who was there and the answer would be the same that we all had a fantastic time!

Thank you to everyone that came along to either run or support us over the weekend! 

Next years race is on the 29th – 30th June. Entries are not open yet, but I am sure we will be in attendance again!

See the results here

Knavesmire 10k Report

Author: Mark Swinden   |  Jun 7, 2018

On a great night for running on Tuesday, two more Harriers have put in performances which have qualified for inclusion in the UK rankings for the first time.

Dave Baxter ran a sub 40 minute 10k for the first time recording 38.51 to place him at 737 in his over 35 age group and in the top 4,000 for all male runners in the UK.

In the same over 35 age group for females, Liz Mould has gone into the rankings at 283, and is well inside the top 2,000 for all UK females, with a fine run of 44.40. Liz has run 8 10k races in the Summer League in the last 2 years, each one faster than the previous one .

Congratulations to both of them,

Mark

Thursday Social Run / Beginners Group

Author: Stephen King   |  May 25, 2018

Just look at this fabulous photo - isn't it just the perfect advert for our wonderful running club ? The Thursday Social Run Group / Beginners Group have just got back from their run exploring the tracks, fields and lanes around Tadcaster. 

Many thanks to Sue Jannati for sending in the photo along with this message: "Took a really nice photo tonight after we finished our club run of our group wondered if I sent it to you you could post it on the Harriers web site. It was Chris's run and we had a really pretty route and ended up doing 7 miles it was really good. Just wanted to say thanks to Chris for taking us."