Harriers Scale the Heights
Allen Smalls, Colchester Harriers’ Ultra-marathon specialist, once again showed his remarkable staying power as he tackled the UTS Snowdonia 100, one of the UK’s toughest trail events. Featuring over 23,000 feet of climbing, the 100Km course along technical mountain trails offers plenty of challenges, but Smalls was equal to them all completing the race in a remarkable time of 21 hours and 41 minutes to finish 23rd overall and 1st V50 in a competitive field of over two hundred top trail runners.
Meanwhile, in the slightly more prosaic setting of Kew Gardens Paul Mingay continued to climb the heights of the British Masters rankings, the 64 year old Kelvedon based runner running the Kew Gardens 10K in a time of 35:13 to finish second in his age group but win the overall age-graded trophy.
Elsewhere in road running Kevin Stevens made the journey up to Newcastle to compete in the Great North Run, one of the UK’s iconic road races, completing the course in a time of 1:34:57.
On the track Ben Felton took gold in a close race at Chelmsford Athletics Stadium, winning the Essex 10,000M championship in a time of 33:07 as only 12 seconds split the top three, with Colin Ridley running 38:27 to take silver in the M50 category.
Back on the trails a trio of Harriers made the top 10 in the Fyfield 10K Trail race, with Simon Smith placing fourth in 46:43, Justine Sheekey fifth (and first female) in 46:55 and Dan Wilkinson eighth in 48:53.
In parkrun action Jon Nears was first home at Colchester Castle in 18:05 with Jason Gunn making it a Harriers double in the club’s home town by finishing first at Highwoods in 19:52. Jack McGuire carried on the good work as he finished first at Mersea in 18:31 with club-mate Heidi Hogan-Steele (along with dog, Milo) finishing second female in 20:10, whilst Andrew Jobling completed the local sweep by taking the honours at Maldon with a time of 18:21. Colin Ridley ran 17:43 at Great Cornard to finish second with Jerry Walder not far behind in fifth in 19:08 whilst Austen Mitchell clocked 19:59 at Lingwood near Norwich.