Where to start? It’s been difficult keeping up with all the action this weekend as a number of Heanor RC members flew the flag across the country in one of the busiest and most-fruitful weekends of the year so far.

Following on from an impressive turnout of twenty-three at the first Pub Run of the summer on Friday, medals were won, personal bests achieved and debut marathons completed as the most was made of perfect, if slightly warm, conditions over the weekend.

Let’s go chronologically.

The quartet of Lisa Palmer, Jill Burke, Wendy Roethenbaugh and Louise Insley kicked the weekend off in fantastic fashion at the British Masters Road Relays in Birmingham on Saturday.

At the same Sutton Park venue where the ladies made club-history earlier in the year at the Midland 6 Stage Road Relays with a fifth-place finish, the golden gals were at it again as they secured medals for the first time in the club’s thirty-two year history.

All four were key cogs of that team back in March and always stood a very good chance of repeating the position, if not quite challenging for medals, in the V35-44 category on Saturday. Their second-place finish exceeded all expectations.

Lisa set the ball rolling for a momentous day on the first of four 3 mile legs by coming back first. Lisa, who ran the second-fastest leg at the recent Livingston Relays, came back with a huge forty-two second advantage over her nearest challenger.

Her speedy time of 17:09 finished the day the joint-fastest and was only equalled on the final leg by British & Irish Masters V35 XC champion Claire Martin of Telford AC.

Jill (19:46) took over on the second leg and came home second,  nine seconds adrift of the Dulwich athlete who had ran the fastest second-leg time to take the lead but all-importantly still nine seconds in front in the V35-44 category standings.

HRC’s recently-crowned British Masters 10k champion, Louise, found herself up against quality opposition on leg three and, despite clocking 18:01 and running the eighth-fastest time of the day, she finished just two seconds behind first to set up an exciting finale.

Despite Wendy’s best efforts, a surprise gold wasn’t to be as Gwen Kinsey of Stroud ran a stormer to take the tape and the team title. Wendy’s time of 19:29 was the sixth-fastest on the final stage and the silver medal – forty-one seconds behind the winners Stroud and fifty seconds ahead of Telford AC in third – was a remarkable achievement given it was the quartet’s first shot at the competition.

Full results HERE

At the same 11:00am start time in North Derbyshire, the Matlock Athletic Club-hosted White Peak Marathon returned and saw Lizzie Poole, Jo Potter and Ed Godber compete over the 26.2 mile distance at the notorious fell race.

First ran in 1977, the route follows “the traditional 26-mile route from Thorpe to Cromford Meadows, following first the Tissington Trail to Parsley Hay, then the High Peak Trail to Cromford” and Ed put all his recent distance work to great effect to leave with a super time on his marathon debut.

Ed’s 24th-place finish in 3:28:23 makes him the third-fastest Heanor RC marathoner so far this year and he modestly noted on Facebook after “not too bad for a first attempt at marathon running!!”

Lizzie and Jo both recorded strong and encouraging times in the heavy summer sun. Out of a field of 178, Lizzie finished well-inside the top-half – and 14th female overall – as she finished seconds outside the four-hour mark.

Although she had to “stop and scream a bit” mid-race with a calf problem and exclaimed afterwards “never again!!!!” (with four exclamation marks), Lizzie crossed the line in a cracking 4:00:55. Rounding off the trio’s debut efforts, Jo finished 110th (and 27th female) on her debut in 4:29:40.

Full results HERE

At the opposite end of the scale, HRC’s juniors were in action on Saturday morning in the second Derbyshire Track & Field Mini League fixture of the season.

Following on from the three PBs in the first fixture three weeks ago, three more juniors had “fun in the sun” at Moorways Stadium, Derby. U11B Ben Marsh ran in the 600m in his first-ever track race and clocked 2.41.7 whilst his older brother, Sam, ran an impressive 6.01.8 for 1500m in the U13B category.

Last but not least, Emily Deeming decided to race both the U15G 1500m and 200m and was rewarded with personal bests in both events.

Continuing her recent more-than decent run of form, which has already seen her race to a personal best over 1500m in Loughborough as well as victory at the Awsworth 5k last weekend, Emily took another five seconds off her 1500m best to run 5.34.4 and clocked 29.2 for the 200m. (with thanks to Ashley Deeming)

Full results HERE

Rolling on into Saturday evening and James Mee and Stuart King represented Heanor RC at the prestigious and high-quality BMC Grand Prix in Watford.

Featuring in the same 5000m “B” race at 8:14pm, the pair didn’t look out of place amongst such company as they both raced to brilliant new personal bests in the first Grand Prix fixture of the summer.

Following on from a 1-2 at the BDL road race last Tuesday, Stuart and James settled into a large pack of similar-standard runners and took full advantage of the perfect, windless conditions at the Woodside Stadium.

James was outkicked into second but sliced a nice four seconds off his four-year old best to clock 14:31.93 whilst Stuart (14:42.59), just seven days on from his efforts on the track over 10,000m, took a mammoth seventeen seconds off his best in his first race over the distance this season.

Full results HERE

If Saturday was jam-packed, Sunday was a quieter affair and left just the small matter of the Burton 10 mile road race to speak of.

Whilst the heat remained, a welcome breeze came in and Joe Rainsford, Paul Mercer, Paul Winfield and Tim Draycott competed over the rarely-run – but still popular – distance.

Joe raced to a wonderful victory and personal best to compliment his personal best at a wet and wild Parliament Hill over 10,000m last weekend.

A third-place BDL finish sandwiched between his 10k PB and victory this weekend and it’s been something of a busy week for the twenty year old but he enjoyed a comfortable win to add the 10 mile title to the fun run one won previously at the event. (still awaiting results)

Phew!