Tadcaster Harriers Running Club

YRRL Season Review

Author: Dave Mullaney   |  Jul 20, 2022

Back in 2019, at the prize presentations for the road race league, we were happy that we had achieved a fifth place in the ladies team event. Fast forward three years and at the prize presentation for the 2022 event, things were totally different.

Our club is currently flourishing. We managed to keep members engaged throughout the recent pandemic and as soon as we could, we recommenced running in groups. Since then we have seen an influx of new members at all levels and ages within the club.

Success at some recent events, whether in overall standings, or age related successes, led us to believe that we now had some top talent in the club, but nothing prepared us for the level of success we achieved at this year's YDRRL series.

The men's team led right from the first event. James Eaton, Wayne Wetherill, Joe Slater, Dan Phillis, AJ Marchant, Alex Young, David Todd and Ryan Kavanagh all contributed to this and the sea of blue and white crossing the finish line at the front of the race was a sight we had never seen before.

Jo Derry, Jo Millican, Ruth McGivern, Georgie Bell, Cara Whitaker, Claire Tucker, Sally Polkey and Laura Macaulay put up a good fight to bring home a 5th place trophy in the ladies team event.

The success of the teams were also reflected in the open and age related categories. James Eaton was third overall in the Male Open event and also took the second place trophy in the Male 40 category. A consistent performance from Will Allan resulted in a joint first place in the Male 70 category. Meanwhile in the ladies events: Jo Millican took a second place trophy in the Female 45 group. Jo Derry was another consistent performer and took the Female 55 1st place trophy. Sally Polkey capitalised on her current form and took 1st place in the Female 65 category.

If that was not enough, there was a new event in this year's league, the 'Masters' team event. With points given in every age category for the first 5 over the line, it would be difficult for the smaller clubs to win in this category. This was reflected in the results with York Knavesmire, who are also the largest club clearly winning the event. However we are also a large club now and have great strength in depth in all categories. This resulted in us taking the trophy for the second place in this event.

We have gone from being a small club in the league to one of the major players. May our success breed success and dominate the event again in 2023!

Thank you to everyone that took a part in the league this year from the Harriers; the club representatives on the YDRRL committee (Mark, Dave and Jo), everyone involved in organising our race, the marshals and helpers, the members who ran in the event and everyone that came along to offer their support!

We cannot wait for next year's league!

Marathon Des Sables

Author: Dave Mullaney   |  Apr 15, 2022

Club member Timothy Duckett took on and completed the challenge of a lifetime at the end of last month when he ran in the gruelling Marathon Des Sables event. Tim has written a report to tell us about his experience:

Navigation Workshop

Author: Dave Mullaney   |  Jan 5, 2022

We will be kicking off our club development activities this year with a course on navigation and map reading for runners which Andy McRoyall has kindly offered to run for us.
This will involve a pre- workshop questionnaire, a Zoom workshop on the evening of 27th January and an outdoor practical day on 29th January on the North York Moors.

Spaces will be limited and this is a fantastic opportunity for anyone looking to improve their map reading and navigation for trail running so, if you’re interested, take a look at the full details here and look out for the e-mail with the link to the doodle poll registration system which will be issued at 7.00 pm on Monday 10th January. There will be a limit of 8 people for the practical day, but no limit on participants in the zoom session.

Running Safety Leaflets

Author: Mark Swinden   |  Apr 29, 2021

Please could you take a few minutes to read the attached leaflets which we are issuing as we want to help our runners to have a safe and enjoyable time whenever they are out running.

The first is "Running Safety Guidelines "which was issued recently by British Athletics, and which gives practical advice on how to stay safe when out for a run.

The second is called "Tick Aware" published by Public Health England advising on practical measures to avoid or deal with ticks which can cause significant health problems if you get a tick bite which goes undetected or untreated.

These documents will also be placed on the Safe Running page of the Harriers' website.

COVID Update January 2021

Author: Dave Mullaney   |  Jan 8, 2021

England Athletics COVID Guidance January 5th 2021

As you are no doubt aware, the Government announced a new national lockdown on Monday 4th January 2021. England Athletics have reviewed the guidance of the government and re-issued their own guidance for athletics activities during this period.

To summarise the guidance and how it affects our club:

• The suspension of all outdoor competitions including track and field, cross country, road, trail, fell and multi-terrain running.
• The suspension of all face-to-face coaches’ and officials’ education.
• The suspension of any other face-to-face club / group training sessions, events, athlete camps, running groups or other social events as well as club committee or other meetings.

This means that the weekly Tuesday club running groups will be suspended until further notice. You are able to run in pairs in a public space, limited to once per day (as per the Government guidance) as long as you are not travelling outside your local area to do this. If you want to run with another Harrier member in your area, please feel free to use our social media pages to 'advertise' for a run partner.

If you want to read the full England Athletics guidance you can find it here.

Corona Virus Update 28th November 2020

Author: Dave Mullaney   |  Nov 28, 2020

England Athletics have updated their guidance notes to accommodate the latest 'Tier rules' from the UK Government in England.
Please follow this link to see the guidance.
How does this affect the Tadcaster Harriers?
From Wednesday 2nd December we are able to re-instate the weekly club runs as we were doing before the recent lockdown in November.
As per our previous review and risk assessments, we do not consider running in groups on the streets of Tadcaster as a 'COVID secure environment'. Therefore we will continue to limit our run group size to a maximum of 6 (six) in line with Government guidance.

You can see from the guidance chart on the England Athletics Website (follow the link here to review it) that if you live in a tier that is higher than the one that Tadcaster is in, you will not be able to attend the weekly run sessions held in Tadcaster. However we will endeavour to ensure that a group / groups will be organised in these areas to ensure that members can still join us for a social group run.

Starting on Thursday 3rd December we will restart the group runs.This is a one off to kick start the group runs again (although we may look to restart Thursday runs in the New Year!). From Tuesday 8th December we will restart the Tuesday group runs.

Please keep an eye out for an e-mail and Facebook link to the Doodle App for these runs. These will continue over the Christmas break (although on the 22nd and 29th there will be less run leaders available, so less groups!)

We will as always continue to monitor this situation and keep you informed of any changes.