Colchester Harriers runners made the most of the return of competitive racing, showing they had lost no sharpness during lockdown with a string of impressive performances.

Leading the way and recording big personal bests at the Chase the Moon 5K and 10K events in Stratford were Ellie Cumner and Victoria Primmer.  Cumner clocked 19:15 to finish fifth female in the 5K event and in the process take over 45 seconds off her previous best whilst Primmer starred in the 10K, her time of 41:15 seeing her place sixth in the women’s race and improve on her previous best by more than 2 minutes.  The ladies’ efforts rather put into the shade what were nevertheless excellent runs on the night by two male Harriers – Paul Neville posting 20:12 (PB) to finish 5^th V45 in the 5K and Simon Miller running 44:19 (5^th V50) in the 10K event.

Dan Widdowson continued the good work at a wet and windy Saffron Walden, running a PB of 35:24 in the Remembrance Run 10K to finish a highly creditable seventh in a top quality field.  There was also a PB for Andrew Jobling, who ran 16:43 in the 5K event, whilst Ben Felton impressed on debut with 16:07 to finish in eight position, Jonathan Nears and Paul Rodgers ran just outside their previous bests with 17:09 and 17:18 respectively, Paul Spowage posted 18:30 to finish 2^nd M50 and Kieran Callaghan ran 23:57.   Gary Perryman then waited until conditions got really wet and windy before making his club debut in the half marathon, finishing in a time of 1:39:16. Meanwhile a host of Harriers were not only braving the weather but also some treacherously muddy conditions at Highwoods Country Park in the third race in the club’s internal virtual cross-country series.  So far nearly 80 green vests have run in the handicapped series with Kat Rigby and Jerry Walder leading the way after the first two events.