News

National Successes for Happy Harriers Hammer Throwers! Having made the long trek up to Manchester on Friday 9th July, Josephine Larkins (SG Hammer) was eager to get started. This was her first English Schools Championships and unsurprisingly she was a little nervous but excited to represent Essex.  As the penultimate athlete to throw this allowed her to size up her fellow competitors. After a No Throw on her first attempt due to nerves, Josephine threw 42.00m on her 3rd attempt, leaving her in 7th place going into the final. Unable to increase this with a further 3 throws,  she... read more

Colchester Harriers’ athletes figured prominently as the county’s best athletes gathered at the Chelmsford Athletics Stadium for the 2021 Essex 5000m championships on Wednesday evening.. Despite having completed over 50 miles in a 24 hour race just three days previously super-girl Victoria Primmer (pictured) ran a perfectly judged race to come through the field and finish third in the Women’s event and so capture her first county medal, with club-mate Jennifer Lovelock taking sixth place. Not to be out-done, super-vet Paul Mingay took silver in the Men’s V50 event, the Kelvedon... read more

On Sunday 4 July, a small but enthusiastic contingent of Junior Harriers made the trip to Norwich for the first EYAL match since 2019. Amidst very changeable weather conditions it was delightful to come together once again as a club and support the young green vests as each and every one of them gave their all against stiff opposition. Stand out performance of the day came from Lyla Belshaw  who won her U15 girls 1500m race in superlative form to cross in 4.47.2 ahead of the field by over 12 seconds,  taking 5 seconds off her PB and with it smashing the Club Record by 4... read more

Colchester Harriers’ athletes enjoyed a busy weekend of competition as the events calendar slowly begins to return to something like normal. Leading the way a team of four Colchester ladies won the 24 hour small team category at the Suffolk Trail Festival, beating off several, larger all male teams in the process. Tracy English, Polly Mears, Victoria Primmer and Justine Sheekey completed a remarkable 35 laps of the 5 mile off-road course through Thetford Forest, beating their nearest rivals by a full 4 laps and in the process smashing the course record. Meanwhile four Harriers... read more

It has been a long awaited, busy time for athletes over the past two weekends with the age group European trials from Bedford followed by the Olympic trials from Manchester less than a week later. There was medal success for hammer thrower Oliver Graham at the age group competition. In his first year at the U23, Oliver recorded a personal best throw of 62.93 to secure silver. In her second year at U23, Rebecca Jeggo competed in both the 100m and 200m. In the final of the 100m on the Saturday she separated two of her England relay teammates to finish 5th, recording a time of... read more

The mid-summer weekend saw an intrepid group of Colchester Harriers runners head off to West Wales to tackle the Cadair X – one of the toughest off-road half marathons the UK has to offer. The Essex based quartet certainly took to the challenging 13.5 mile course, which takes in ancient woodland, stunning glacial lakes and challenging mountain terrain, with Richard Heath coming home in an excellent 3rd place in 2:19:14, just edging out club-mate Allen Smalls (pictured below), who was fourth and first MV50 in a time of 2:19:33. Tim Ballard completed the course, which includes an overall... read more

Colchester Harriers’ runners enjoyed a weekend of success with a number of excellent performances across three counties. Matt Davey and Gary Perryman ventured into deepest, darkest Kent to run in the Dartford Half Marathon, Davey running a PB of 1:25:32 on to finish second overall and 1st MV 40 with Perryman clocking 1:38:30 to claim 7th overall and 1st V45. Meanwhile Simon Ford, Tim Holden and Sean Duffett made the journey into Norfolk to compete in the Thetford Forest Trail Half Marathon, with Ford finishing the off-road course just outside the top 10 in 1:29:54, Holden coming home... read more

Colchester Harriers' junior Isla Widdowson came 2nd at the AJ Bell World Triathlon event in Leeds on Saturday within the TriStar 2 F11-12 category completing the 7km event in 28m 49s. Coming off the back of a recent victory at Milton Keynes duathlon Isla continued her good run of form in this COVID impacted multi sport season. The course in Roundhay Park would be re-used the following day by the professionals and included a long run uphill with some tight bike turns. Choosing to swim the 200m in the lake without a wetsuit given the warm temperature Isla emerged from the lake first in 3m... read more

Rebecca Jeggo made her debut at international athletics, at this year’s Loughborough International, representing England in the 4 x 100m relay, she ran a storming last leg, closing down the front runners and moved the England team up to 3rd, helping England win the team competition. Rebecca also ran the individual guest 100m, finishing 3rd, equalling her personal best, in only her second 100m race this year and looking forward to an exciting season, despite the difficulties of the past... read more

A small group of Harriers made the trip to Dagenham to compete in one of the first opens ofthe season. The weather was cool and breezy but way better than the end of last seasonwhere many competitions were held on very windy and wet days. The first races on the track were the 1500’s race one contained 5 of the club's athletesleading from gun to finish Theo Gardiner running his first 1500 since 2019 crossed the line in alarge PB of 4.55.14, 30s quicker than his previous best, Theo was followed closely by PaulPreston V45 4.57.41, Kevin McAlinden V55 5.02.86, and Jerry Walder V45 5.07.67... read more