News

Despite the mercury hovering just over 3 degrees as the coach set off for Peterborough en-route to the first EYAL meet of the year, Sunday 14 April may well be remembered as one of the coldest meets, but also one with potentially the largest opening meet scores for the club.  The junior green vests put in a magnificent display to finish in a fantastic second place with a provisional score of 605.  A great start to the track and field season placing the club in 9th position in the league after just one meet. How different from a year ago, when the team only managed to recruit 11... read more

The Manchester Marathon is becoming a top class event and a handful of Colchester Harriers were involved this year with some superb results. Ed Mitchell who has won a handful of good quality races in the last year including an Essex 5 and 10 mile road Championship was in sparkling form at Manchester clocking a personal best 2h 31m 46s to finish 23rd overall. Veteran Paul Preston is also in cracking form and came home in a new personal best 2h 49m 00s, knocking four minutes off his previous standing. They were followed home by Mark McKeown 2h 56m 47s, Richard Flutter 3h 10m 21s (PB), Jay... read more

A number of the club’s junior athletes took advantage of an open meeting at Lee Valley on Saturday. In what proved to be difficult sprinting conditions, with a cold and swirling wind, all the athletes competed admirably on the back of their winter training. Having been cajoled into her first individual 400m race, Rebecca Jeggo found herself up against the 2018 English Schools’ champion. She acquitted herself well, keeping in touch with the leader until the 250m mark, finishing third in a new Junior Harriers’ club record time of 57.92s. In the 400m Jake Young ran a solid 50.19s... read more

The Essex 5 mile Championship was held at Great Leighs showground on Sunday. Making his debut for Colchester Harriers was number one British ranked veteran over 60 in road running Paul Mingay. Mingay now nearly 63 took the county gold in his age group in a superb time of 28m 50s for 24th place overall, Colin Ridley took the over 50 silver 35th in 29m 50s, while Annette Oakman continued her fine form with a county bronze in the over 45 age group in 35m 21s and in the new under 20 road running category Fergus Crouch took silver in 30m 29s finishing overall 43rd. Other Harriers competing... read more

The Harriers twice Olympian race walker Dominic King continued his superb form with his second fastest 50km walk and fifth fastest ever in the UK all time rankings. King's time of 3h 56m 35s in Dudinska, Croatia qualified him for the World  Championships in Doha. King went through the half marathon in 1h 38m and the marathon in 3h 17m, a truly superb effort. His 5km splits were very even especially in the first half of the race at 23:09, 23:12, 23:16, 23:11, 23:11, 23:12, 23:31, 23:54, 24:46, 25:14. Allen Smalls took on the 33 mile Lulworth Cove challenge in Dorset finishing in... read more

Sunday 24 March saw twenty athletes competing at a Development Run Jump Throw competition hosted at the track. This was a great opportunity for fledgling athletes to gain experience within a relaxed atmosphere.  It also allowed Maxinne Simon and Chris Sale, two new Harrier officials, to judge a couple of field events, practising skills gained at last autumns officials course and gaining knowledge as we head towards the outdoor season. The competition was the culmination of a six- week multi event course organised for Sunday athletes, which saw three of Harriers older “junior”... read more

Ramadan Osman raced to his second half marathon victory of the year in Sunday's Colchester half marathon clocking 68m 45s to win by over a minute. Ram, who also won the race in March 2018, was nearly a minute quicker this year. He also improved his personal best, set when he won the Great Bentley half marathon in early February, by nine seconds. Jason Gunn was 12th in 1h 15m 55s followed by Richard Heath who ran sub 80 minutes clocking 1h 18m 47s. Several Harriers finished in the next few minutes led by Robert Smith 1h 22m 57s, Keith Marley 1h 22m 59s (first over 50), Barry Frost... read more

Harriers athletes have posted more excellent results during the last couple of weeks including some very good half marathon performances and trophy winners at the Colchester 15 and 7.5 mile road races which was staged by the club and was enjoyed by all the runners on a sunny but windy morning. Surrey half marathon (last weekend) - Helen Taczynski 1h 30m 28s (PB) and Andy Taczynski 1h 35m 24s.London Vitality half marathon (last weekend) - Ed Mitchell 1h 10m 09s (PB), Mark McKeown 1h 17m 55s, Barry Frost 1h 24m 44s.Brentwood half marathon - Keith Marley 1h 24m 20sFleet Army Championship... read more

Colchester Harriers runners were out in force at the Essex Road Relays held on a very windy seafront at Harwich on Saturday morning. The Green vests were in outstanding form claiming seven sets of team medals, a club record. Women race The green vests showed tremendous team spirit to win the womens race and take the gold medals in the over 35 team race in an exciting race which saw three teams break the hour mark.  The victorious Harriers team clocking 59m 33s to win the over 35 race by more than four minutes from Saffron Striders. The experienced Sarah Stradling clocked 20m 33s for... read more

Six Harriers took part in the under 13/15 indoor open meeting at Lee Valley on Saturday. In the 60m sprint races the four girls recorded personal best performances. Under 13 Hollie Martin-Whymark was the quickest clocking 8.81s and 8.80s to improve her PB, set in the Essex indoor championships last month, by 0.11s. Under 15 Raine Tylor's fastest run was timed at 9.29s with under 13 Jessica Scotchmer stopping the clock at 9.35s in her first run. In the 200m races under 15 Olivia Gillon improved her PB by 0.03s clocking 29.66s while Hollie impoved her PB by nearly a quarter of a... read more