From the capital cities of England and Scotland down to Merseyside and Buxton to reaches farther flung in Hawaii, Heanor Running Club members flew the flag across the world in another busy weekend of road and track action.
Marathons and half marathons were on the agenda for most whilst another eleven took to the streets of London for the latest event in the RunBritain Grand Prix series.
A little closer to home on the track at the Derbyshire & Nottinghamshire Track & Field Championships, however, and HRC junior Lily Winfield set the ball rolling with two personal bests and double-middle-distance gold at Moorways Stadium.
Lily, who has set PBs in both distances already this season, most-recently at the Charnwood AC Open two weeks ago, shaved a few tenths off her 800m best to take the honours in the two-lap event on Saturday in 2:30.38.
The following day, Lily overcame the entire field by a huge eleven-second margin to take two seconds off her 1500m best to win in 5:06.89 – a time that sees her go inside the top-15 in the UK U13G rankings so far this year.
Up in Edinburgh, Carl Hughes and Abbie Leivers tackled the full distance at the Edinburgh Marathon Festival whilst Rose Leivers and Jeff Everitt took on the half as over 30,000 runners competed across both events.
In the 12th running of the 26.2 mile race, Carl ran his second sub-3:30 marathon in the space of six weeks and clocked 3:26:23 (awaiting official results) to follow-up his 3:06:16 PB in London.
Abbie left the Highlands a very happy lady after smashing her personal best by seven minutes. Just two days after celebrating her 23rd birthday, Abbie ran 3:54:51 in the damp conditions to also dip inside the four-hour mark for the first time.
Rose (1:40:43) showed how well she’s recovered from her own marathon exploits in London last month as she knocked almost a minute off her previous half marathon best whilst Jeff went inside the club V50 merit standard with 1:44:13.
300-odd miles south of Hadrian’s Wall and eleven HRC members competed alongside 12,000 others at the high-quality BUPA London 10,000m incorporating British Championships.
In an event featuring European medallists (and eventual 2014 race winners) Gemma Steel and Andy Vernon, Lisa Palmer (36:08) was the standout performer in yellow and blue as she came home with a personal best and top-20 finish in the women’s field.
Lisa took three seconds off her previous best set last November at the Leeds Abbey Dash on a twistier and arguably less PB-friendly course.
Louise Insley (37:33) continues to make running 37 minutes look easy as the British Masters champion ran the second-fastest time of her life to finish 31st female and bag second in her age category.
Issy Morledge went through halfway in 22:30 and ran a negative split to run 44:54 whilst eight days on from the heavy sun at the White Peak Marathon, Lizzie Poole followed suit to judge her race well and cross the line in 48:02.
On the men’s side of things, James Mee finished a stride ahead of teammate Chris Rainsford and just under a minute ahead of Stuart King as all three ran their second-fastest ever times for the distance on the roads.
James (31:12) pipped Chris (31:13) in the final 100m to lead the team of three – completed by Stuart in 32:04 – to a possible top-6 team finish and a place amongst the prize money (results to be confirmed).
Joe Rainsford (33:35), Paul Mercer (42:53) and Paul Winfield (45:14) all felt the effects of a play-off final hangover to post slightly slower-than-par times whilst one of the club’s newest recruits, Matt Chambers, finished just a minute outside his best in 46:18.
Dale Annable made it two wins in a row at the testing Buxton Half Marathon. Hardly a course renowned for fast times, Dale still managed to go six seconds quicker than twelve months ago to win by almost three minutes in 1:16:52.
Tony Weatherson trekked across the world to compete in the Hawaii Half Marathon. Despite an interrupted build-up, Tony pulled it out the bag again in the “very hot and hilly” conditions to finish 11th – and first V45-49 – in 1:26:30.
The Liverpool Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon results were still outstanding at the time of writing but Ned Needham was due to toe the line along with soon-to-be HRC members, Laura Beth James-Hutchinson and Gary Mellors, who will be eligible to compete in the yellow and blue from 1st June.
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