Colchester Harriers’ athletes enjoyed a busy weekend of competition as the events calendar slowly begins to return to something like normal.

Leading the way a team of four Colchester ladies won the 24 hour small team category at the Suffolk Trail Festival, beating off several, larger all male teams in the process. Tracy English, Polly Mears, Victoria Primmer and Justine Sheekey completed a remarkable 35 laps of the 5 mile off-road course through Thetford Forest, beating their nearest rivals by a full 4 laps and in the process smashing the course record.

Meanwhile four Harriers spent the weekend in Norfolk competing in the Holkham Half Ironman with Melissa Dowell showing very strongly across all 3 disciplines to win the F55-59 category in a remarkable time of 5:10:32. Club mate Nicola Hilson enjoyed a successful debut in the event crossing the line in 5:55:59 to finish fifth F50-55, whilst Chris Manby came home in 5:14:31 and Louise Yates 6:12:51.

In trail racing Bill Haining ran the Fen Gallop 10K in 44:56, to finish fifth V50 and back in Essex there was double success for the club at the Wickham Wanderings Trail Race – with Allen Smalls winning the half marathon event in 1:38:52 and Simon Morgan coming home first in the 7 mile race, clocking 1:03:55.