It was complete dominance for Colchester Harriers in the Essex Road Running Grand Prix series with the men’s and women’s teams both earning league victories. It was especially sweet for the men who overturned a six-point deficit in the final round at the Southend 10K to overhaul Braintree and take the title! A hugely significant victory for the men with it being our first league win in ten years in this event. With so many of the women’s team involved in the later stages of Autumn marathon training or tapering, it was a case of hanging onto their lead which they did with a threadbare team – a huge shout out should go to Emily Worboys who rose from her sick bed and ran a good 10K a week after crushing her marathon PB in Warsaw to ensure a scoring team was fielded. This was critical in narrowly clinching the title. Individual series accolades included Heidi Hogan – Steele (leading by example as new women’s team captain) winning the women’s series with Kate Creak coming in second, to round off a superb road season for her. Club stalwart and legend Allen Smalls took home the male V55 gold medal.

Huge credit must go to Daniel Steptoe-Thompson for galvanizing the men’s team and pushing to get as many men as possible participating which has resulted in the best sides being fielded. As these results show, full strength Harriers teams are very difficult to beat in Essex.

Colchester Harriers V60 quartet of Paul Mingay, Colin Ridley, Pete West, and Andy Raynor took an impressive gold medal at the South of England Road Relays at the Rushmoor Arena in Aldershot, thus retaining their title from last year. With the best clubs in the south in attendance, the awesome foursome clocked a time of 1:34:54.72 over the 6km four leg relays. Giving them a winning margin of 37 seconds in a closely fought contest. Harriers also entered a senior men’s team comprised of Dean Williamson, James Morley, Ben Whyte, Chris Ryan, Adrian Mussett and Max Hemson came a respectable 33^rd place in a time of 1:58:10.70 over the six legs. Knowing the quality of these athletes, it highlights the high standard of this event and underlines the immense achievement of the V60s.

From ‘old’ to ‘young,’ and 19-year-old Lizzie Wellsted had the ideal end to her road racing season by finally cracking the sub-16 5k mark at the Lightning Fast 5k at Battersea Park, running 15:57.50. She also finished second female and earned herself a £500 payday (her biggest pay cheque to date, both monetary and size wise!). This is also a Colchester Harriers 5k club record and ranks her as eighth on the all-time under-twenty list over that distance! Lizzie is now based at Leeds Beckett University, under the coaching of Andy Henderson and is running with athletes of the caliber of Phil Sesseman, Kate Axford and Alexandra Bell, to name a few. Her training has changed quite dramatically in line with the state-of-the-art scientific athlete analysis conducted by the Leeds Talent Hub section of the university. This result shows the fruits of her first year in university now being harvested and is promising for next year and the cross-country season ahead (which Lizzie loves).

Staying with our younger athletes and River Reeve broke the girls course record at Colchester Junior parkrun with a time of 7 minutes and 3 seconds over the 2km course. Also, in early October a Harriers junior ‘takeover’ of junior parkrun occurred where more than thirty youngsters dressed in green supported their local parkrun and raised awareness of the club. It is great to see the junior section thriving.

‘Mingay the medal machine’ was at it again, as the V65 athlete cleaned up at the recent European Masters Athletics Championships in Madeira. Paul bagged an astonishing five gold medals across the week’s competitions. What was also incredibly impressive was the range of distances in which he took his prizes – 5,000M on the track (18:13.35) 10K on the road (38:05) and then in the half marathon to round things off, running an impressive 1:23.30 when his legs would have been very loaded up from the previous days endeavors. These individual accolades were topped up with team golds in the 10K and half marathon races.

Justine Sheekey raced in the Brighton 10K and despite being overlooked to run in an Essex vest, delivered a performance she admitted she could have only dreamt of, by running 35:57. Justine has had a really tough 18 months with a hip impingement diagnosis, which could have resulted in a hip replacement. However, her diligence in the gym to absolutely bullet proof herself has meant she has adapted and overcome. She still must listen to her body, and this performance was off only FIVE SPEED SESSIONS(!?) and resulted in her being top V35 and earning an England vest next year. What an achievement and a message to us all that we are probably not doing anywhere enough strength and conditioning! Justine is now galvanized and excited to see what she can achieve in 2026.

Finally, a plethora of autumn marathons have been run, and I have identified some of the results I know of below (apologies if I have missed you off):

Dean Williamson – Frankfurt: 2:17.45 (PB). Club record.

Emily Worboys – Warsaw: 3:13.53 (PB).

Jerry Walder – Chester: 3:12.45.

Becca Doe – Amsterdam: 2:56.10 (PB).

Jay Waite – Amsterdam: 3:24.12.

Heidi Hogan Steele – Frankfurt: 2:54.51 (PB).

Kevin Higgins – Chelmsford: 3:40:05.

Emma Warren – Chicago: 4:17.21.

Ross Shaw – Chester: 3:17.54 (PB).

Victoria Primmer – Bruges: 3:02.12 – Third female overall!

Chris Stevenson – Oxford: 3:40.51 – England Masters debut!

Simon Colclough – Chicago 3:09.02 (PB).