HRRL Lordshill 10, Frankfurt Marathon, Snowdonia Marathon, British Masters Half Marathon Championship and Fleet 10k
HRRL Lordshill 10 mile
An enthusiastic team spirit helped Farnham Runners put in a strong performance at the Lordshill 10 miler, the fourth race of the Hampshire Road League, with all the club teams advancing up their respective divisions. Having survived the drive there through heavy downpours, they were rewarded with good conditions on arrival, with just a few puddles on the course.
Seven of the nineteen members taking part gained personal best times and two ran the distance for the first time. Eleven finished in under 70 minutes. A delighted Eloise Stradling came home as first Junior lady.
In the top divisions the men’s A team placed 6th of ten teams going up to a safer 7th on aggregate, while their B team moved up to 6th (of fifteen in B division 2) with 4th on the day. Their “C”s, in Division 2, moved up to 8th (7th on day). The lady’s teams are both in Division Two but gained promising results: The “A”s came 2nd (aggregate 3rd) and the “B”s were top (aggregate 4th).
First Farnham Runner back, James Clarke started fast and just carried on, beating his 5km and 10km best times on the way. His two minute personal best of 59 minutes 9 seconds gave him an excellent 30th place of 499 finishers.
Next Richard Lovejoy also clocked a PB with 1:01:28, followed by stalwart Ian Carley in 1:02:04.
Rob Gilchrist finished strongly for another PB in 1:02:33, overtaking men’s captain James Warren, who had to be content with leading the B squad in 1:03:08. Not far behind, Jason East was pleased with his 1:03:25. Charles Ashby (1:06:06) and Carlos Guerro (1:06:50) completed the B squad. There was an incomplete but scoring C string of Mike Walberton 1:07:51, Mike Ashworth (1:08:00) and Neil Ambrose (1:11:56, PB by almost 3 mins).
Susie Chan stormed away for an excellent 12th place in the ladies’ race, clocking 1:08:24 (PB). Jane Georghiou goes 2nd in UK W60 2014 rankings with 1:13:29. Eloise Stradling’s 1:14:47 was a PB by over 4 minutes. This puts her 11th in UK Under 23 rankings for the distance for 2014. Charlotte Hanson led in the excellent B string, pushing up to the distance for the first time (1:15:37), followed by Vicki Clarke (1:18:53, 3 min PB) and Lindsay Bamford in 1:20:07. The biggest PB of 12 minutes was clocked by Tina Harrison in 1:24:59 with Hannah Maxfield recording 1:48:48 in her first 10 miler.
Other races
Stuart Williamson selected the Frankfurt Marathon for his third attempt at the distance and was pleased to take 7 minutes from his previous best (3:15:03).
Three took on the challenge of the tough hilly Snowdonia Marathon. Charlie Hill-Venning ran strongly for a fine 3:25:26, with his brother John taking almost 6 minutes from his time last year (3:26:03). Matt Dellar bravely chose this for his first 26.2 miler and clocked an impressive 3:42:17.
Jane Georghiou won a British Masters Half Marathon Championship age group gold medal for 1:41:29 in the Salisbury Half Marathon.
Douglas Blyth gained new M70 record with his 56:20 in the Fleet 10k. Other Farnham times at Fleet: Jason East 38:57, Mark Maxwell 39:14 (PB), Stuart Haig 40:32, Tim Cummins 42:30, Chris Jackson 46:38, Kay Copeland 50:57, Terry Copeland 50:59, Mary D. Fitzgerald 55:41.