The club entered Sunday’s Suffolk junior cross country relays at Bourne Park, Ipswich for the first time with thirteen young Harriers competing in the event.

The under 15 girls A team of Madeleine Claydon, Milly Presland and Jess Longstaff all ran superbly to win the gold medals in the 3 x 3k race in 37m 25s, almost seven minutes ahead of the second team from Beccles and Bungay Harriers. Madeleine ran a storming first leg clocking 12m 08s, handing over to Milly with a comfortable lead of 2m 44s. Milly proceeded to run the fastest leg of the race, her time of 11m 29s increasing the Harriers lead to over six minutes. Jess cruised the final leg in 13m 48s to take an emphatic win for the Harriers.

The B team was incomplete due to Emily Henderson picking up an injury during the week. Emily Swan and Jennifer Woodsw joined forces with an Ipswich Jaffa athlete to run as a non-scoring team. The trio were the third team to finish the race in 44m 59s, just 46 seconds behind Beccles and Bungay. Emily running 15m 03s and Jennifer 16m 47s before handing over to the Ipswich Jaffa athlete.

The under 13 girls all ran well in their 3 x 2km race. Daisy Rickwood ran a solid leg of 9m 23s to hand over to Alice Begg in fourth place. Alice ran 9m 09s, the equal second fastest second leg time, pulling the team up to third place before handed over to Emily McGill who stopped the clock on 28m 53s and fourth place overall. The race was won by Stowmarket Striders in 26m 22s.

The under 13 boys also ran well in their 3 x 2k race, especially as one of the A team runners had to pull out on the morning of the race due to a chest infection. Charlie Parmenter took the lead from the start running the first leg in 7m 47s to give the Harriers a 29 second lead over Ipswich Jaffa Storm. Promoted to the A team and making his cross country debut for the Harriers, Marcus Jensen ran his leg in 9m 19s, dropping just one place at the end of the second leg. Barney Balding took over 44 seconds behind the Ipswich Jaffa Storm runner. With the first and third teams having fast runners on ther final leg, both marginally quicker than Charlie, Barney ran well, clocking 8m 48s to hang on second place finishing in 25m 54s, just 6 seconds ahead of a fast finishing athlete from Kesgrave Kruisers. The race was won by Ipswich Jaffa Storm in 24m 04s.

An incomplete B team ran out after two legs with Michael Woods running 10m 12s and Bhramav Rajesh running 10m 20s.

Overall the team finished 5th on the day scoring 1,760 points. The winning team was Ipswich Jaffa with 1,030 points.

Other news.

Ed Mitchell who has been in tremendous form for the green vests of Colchester Harriers won the Tiptree 10 road race to become Essex 10 mile road champion. Mitchell won in a close finish clocking 53m 49s to just beat Owen Cima of Brentwood by 8 seconds. Colin Ridley was also a gold medallist taking the over 50 crown in 60m 15s. Barry Frost cloked an impressive 64m 17s, while Paul Preston was not far off in 64m 41s. Simon Morgan and Dan Wilkinson ran well with Wilkinson achieving a personal best.

Ramadam Osman made his Metropolitan League Cross Country debut at Claybury Grove, Woodford.  This league is the highest quality in Britain, and it’s a tribute to Osman that he finished 20th in such a high class field.

Wayne Cook is another Harrier in top form knocking 3 minutes off his best ever half marathon time at the Peterborough Half, coming home in 1h 22m 24s.

Charlie Holohan and Louise Yates ran in the very popular Royal Parks Half Marathon where 16,000 runners took to the line. They ran it as a training run and enjoyed the day finishing in 2 hours and 6 minutes.

Latest park run news

Good results came from the weekends park runs. Milly Presland was first lady to finish at Colchester Castle in 20m 28s. There were sub 20 minite runs for Victor Steinward 18m 44s, James Wright 18m 47s, Andy Raynor 19m 37s, Dominic Nicejewski 19m 52s and Kevin Higgins 19m 55s. Not far behind was Richard Boden in 20m 32s. Eleanor Mayne was 3rd lady home in 22m 02s. Young athlete Charlie Walder ran a personal best time of 22m 19s.

At Clacton sea front Rebecca Cooke stormed to the ladies victory finishing 4th overall in 21m 0s2, while Fran Norris took another over 55 course record clocking 23m 30s. David Wright came home 3rd overall in 20m 39s and took 43 seconds off the over 60 record at this event.

Kesgrave park run saw a great run from Jason Gunn finishing runner up in 17m 15s, with paul Rodgers, who is on top form, 3rd in 17m 24s. Craig Mitchell was also solid in 18m 51s and Kate Gibson was well up in the ladies category clocking 22m 49s.

At the Maldon park run Paul Dobson continues to come back from injury finishing 4th in 19m 04s.

The Cudmore Grove park run saw Chris Smith surge to victory in 19m 47s with Russell Goodridge 2nd in 20m 52s while Mel Moore ran 27m 37s.