Harriers triumph at Hadleigh

On a slightly wet and windy Sunday Colchester Harriers again came together as a club and produced a fantastic set of cross country results. Both the senior and junior athletes dominated in their respective leagues, with the senior men finishing first and the senior ladies also finishing first. These results mean Harriers go into the final fixture with the taste of a first league title in eight years. The juniors ran strongly in wet conditions and produced another fantastic set of results to top both the Junior boys and Junior girls leagues going into the final fixture at Halstead next week.

In the boys race Thomas Palmer and Victor Steinward completed a Harriers 1 – 2. They were backed up with some fine running by Sam Shippey, Tommy Colsell and Charlie Parmenter. Harrison Leek, Myles Martell Smith and Joseph Filer all completed the Harriers contingent in the boys race. Meanwhile Milly Presland and Alexandra Bell Cobbold completed another Harriers 1 – 2 in the girls race. Madeleine Claydon was hot on their heels for a fine fourth place and Emily Henderson, Jes Longstaff, Alice Begg, Missy Buxton, Emily Swan, Hannah Rogers and Nancy Filer all ran with great gusto to complete the Harriers representation.

In the senior men’s race Nate Filer continued the pace set by the juniors by finishing first and was chased hard by Chris Sellens 4th, Ermeas Afewerki 5th, Danny Milward 10th, Richard Heath 11th, Tom Cresswell 17th, Joseph Boden 19th and Robert Smith 23rd to complete the men’s scoring team. There were strong supporting runs by Andrew Lovelock 29th, Jon Nears 31st,  Rob Cronshaw 32nd, Kevin Higgins 36th, Fergus Crouch 37th, Richard Flutter 40th, John Fryer 42nd, Russell Goodridge 45th, Ian Rattray 78th, Tim Holden 83rd, Kevin McAlinden 85th, Simon Smith 103rd, Nick Kricka 108th, James Plant 109th, Daniel Wilkinson 114th, Martin Claydon 121st and Kieran Callaghan 122nd.

The ladies had equally impressive set of results with Aiko Hennington leading the charge to claim 2nd place followed by Margaret Deasy in 4th, Debbie Cattermole 6th and Andrea James in 11th. The scorers were supported by by Annette Oakman in 16th, Alexandra Hennessy 18th, Kate Sandercock 26th and Jenny Richardson in 38th place. Again well done to everyone who ran and  wore a green vest in challenging conditions today.

On Saturday a strong contingent of Harriers competed in Park runs at both Colchester and Dolgellau in mid Wales. Conditions were ideal for some fast times and Paul Rodgers continued a recent vein of fine form by coming second at Dolgellau in 18m 18s. He was chased hard by Charlie Holohan 20m 34s and David Wright 20m 57s who finished in 3rd and 4th place respectively. Helen Thurlow and Fay Smalls both enjoyed the scenic Welsh countryside to finish the twisty course in 25m 46s and 30m 12s. Meanwhile in sunny Essex Jason Gunn ran well to win the notoriously tricky Colchester Castle Park run in a time of 17m 59s. He was chased hard by Jerry Walder who finished in 19m 03s, just 6 seconds off his PB. There were strong showings by Cameron Humphries 19m 54s, Andy Raynor 20m 00s, Adam Gerrish 21m 13s, John Fryer 23m 35s, Arthur Whiston 23m 47s, Tim Comer 24m 00s, Kieran Callaghan in 24m 19s and Jenny Richardson 24m 26s.  A great weekend of running by all involved with Colchester Harriers.