Spring racing season is gathering momentum, resulting in a busy racing month for the Colchester Harriers Athletics Club endurance athletes.

The highlight must be a fantastic double in the Essex Road Relays at Northern Gateway with both the men’s and women’s senior teams taking the gold medal.

Starting off with the women, Victoria Primmer (17:50), Justine Sheekey (17:35) and Heidi Hogan-Steele (17:26) combined to brilliant effect to bring home Harriers sixth County Relays title, and the third in the last four years, beating Chelmsford AC into second place by forty seconds. The Senior B team of Emily Worboys (20:14), Tarynn MaCleod (21:59) and Sam Hart (19:30) also performed strongly to finish tenth senior team.

Kate Creak (17:16) ran the second fastest women’s leg of the day to build on excellent legs from Michelle Lock (20:38) and Ellie Cumner (20:13) to see the first ever Women’s V40 title for Colchester Harriers. The V40B team of Margaret Deasy (19:59), Natasha Rice (22:36) and Kate Sandercock (21:37) also ran brilliantly to finish in a very creditable fifth place.

And last but not least, the golden girl trio of Annette Oakman (19:44), Katie Gibson (20:46) and Denise Morley (20:13) combined to run home clear winners in the V50 category.

Following on from the excellent results of the women’s teams, the senior men also performed well, winning their first Essex Road Relays title since 2014. The quartet of Mohammed Elbayan (14:49), Kim Bowling (14:55), Ben Whyte (15:15) and Chris Ryan (15:30) secured gold with a comfortable one minute and twenty-six second cushion over Braintree and District. The V60 team replicated their younger club members gold, with the trio of Paul Spowage (17:46), Colin Ridley (17:25), and Chris Stevenson (18:13). These golds were backed up by team silver in the V60 race, bronze in the Senior men’s race and Bronze in the V50 race.

An excellent day across all age categories was rounded off by the youngest club members. An good turnout of thirteen young athletes ran in the U11 2K race. Finley Weir finished second overall and Colchester Harriers won the boys’ team prize with Sam Bailey and Matthew Feaviour making up the team. The U13 boys consisting of Max Faulkner, Roux Bueno and Harry Jeffery picked up the bronze medal. An U13 and U15 girls’ Harriers team also turned out, as well as a ‘non-scoring’ U17 team which included both Essex and Suffolk athletes. It is always great to see high participation levels amongst the younger athletes.

From team events to individual running, and Harriers athletes have been competing in a plethora of races around the country. Dean Williamson broke the long-standing Colchester Harriers twenty-mile club record with a fabulous time of 1:47:38 to take victory at the Wymondham 20, as he continues to build towards the Manchester Marathon.

One of the most popular local races on the calendar, the Little Bromley 10K saw the green vests out in force. In mild Spring conditions, twenty-three Harriers toed the start-line, with four finishing in the top-10 – Dean Williamson, third (31:53.2), Adrian Mussett, fourth (32:14.11), Chris Ryan, fifth (33:03.8) and James Morley, seventh (33:21.98). The women also had strong performances with the standout performers being Emily Worboys (43:52.1), Michelle Lock (45:58.46) and Anita Mussett (48:02.62).

Lizzie Wellsted competed in her first race of the year as she builds back from injury. The Pulford 10K proved to be a useful rust buster for Lizzie as she ran a time of 34:46 to finish sixteenth female and first under twenty-one. Lizzie is now at an altitude training camp in Font Romeu, as she continues to ramp up her training for the season ahead.

Several green vests ventured to Epping Forest for the iconic Orion 15 race which is all about mud and hills. Angus Holford, Cameron Humphries, Stuart Harris, Allen Smalls and Eleanor Clark all getting stuck into the trails.

James Plant did his hard winter of training justice by running a PB in the UK Boston marathon on the windswept fens. Finishing in a time 03:45:59.

It was not all serious racing, as a coachful of Harriers made the pilgrimage to the mecca of parkrun, which is Bushy Park. A fun, social day ensued with views of fallow deer in sunny Spring conditions, topped off with a nice breakfast after. A roaring success which is likely to be backed up by future club parkrun coach outings.