Quadruple victories for Harriers at Ekiden

Colchester Harriers swept to quadruple victories to have their most successful Ekiden marathon relay ever at Woodbridge, where 200 teams took on the marathon distance over 6 legs. Harriers boosted 15 senior teams and 4 junior teams a record number of green vests competing in one competition.

The only title that had eluded the green vests over the years was the overall senior mens race with 5 second places and Harriers put it right this year to romp home ahead of home club Ipswich Jaffa and in 3rd place Colchester Harriers veteran over 40 team. The senior team were always in the lead thanks to a great 7.2 km first leg by Ramadam Osman, Chris Sellens then produced the fastest 5 mile leg on the day to extend Harriers lead before Adrian Mussett ran a superb 33 minute 10km (the fastest 10km leg) to give Harriers a time cushion which the final 3 runners Danny Millward, Angus Holford and Adam Sawyer kept to the finish line clocking a time of 2:24 over the grassed course.

The veteran 40 men were way ahead of the opposition and to finish 3rd overall in the race was a terrific effort and a deserved category win, the team was Paul Rodgers, Mark Harrod, Richard Flutter, Richard Heath, Ged McMillan and Allen Smalls.

Making it a trio of men’s victories was the Harriers supervets team ( over 50 ) who scorched to victory for the third consecutive year, Richard Boden, Simon Smith, Colin Ridley, David Wright,Clive Thomas and Paul Spowage produced the good this time.

The new category of Supervet ladies saw a strong Harriers team make it 4 team victories, with the over 50 team of Debbie Cattermole, Denise Morley, Steph Horner, Anita Mussett, Jenny Richardson and Fran Norris, winning thi inaugural competition.

The senior ladies were a fine third having to recover from a late team change due to a missing runner they were unlucky not to finish champions, great runs came from Laura Shewbridge, Samantha Hart, Lucy mapp, Ella Neale, Helen Bloomfield and Becky Cooke, the Mixed team just missed out on medals finishing 4th with John Fryer, Doug Mcgill, Sarah Sellens, Andrew Jobling and Fergus Crouch, close to third position.

Other results

Nathan Filer produced a tremendous performance to win the Spitfire 24 hour Challenge held at Hornchurch park running 19 laps of the 9.16km circuit to clock 175kms.

The Essex 10km track Championship held at Braintree, saw both champions crowned from Colchester Harriers, Laura Shewbridge ran a conservative race and won easily in 39:18 over the longest track race distance of 25 laps. While Ramadam Osman continues to show what a talent he is running a personal best 32:50, to beat team mate Angus Holford 33:18 into second place, another superb run came from young Adam Sawyer who also had a fastest ever run of 34:01 to finish 5th, further great efforts came from Colin Ridley, Tom Cresswell, Ged McMillan and Richard Flutter.