Morpeths Carl Avery competed in the
2016 European Duathlon Championships on Sunday 17th April in Kalkar in Germany. Avery, the current Sprint World Champion finished seventeenth in a top class Elite Men’s field, and was second home of the two Great Britain representatives who had qualified, the other being fellow North Eastern Counties Cross Country representative Phillip Wylie of Cheltenham Harriers, who finished eighth in a total time of 1hr49m39s. Avery clocked a total time of 1hr51m39s, which combined two runs which were s andwiched with a bicycle performance. On the first section, an approx 10k run, Avery was well up with the leaders, who included Wylie, Avery clocked 31m20s, which put him 32 seconds adrift of the front runner, as he went on to the first transition on the bike, which took him a total of 62m23s to complete, which made him now 51 seconds adrift of the leader, as he went into the final stage, an approx 5k run, which took him 16m33s, which cumulatively saw him finish just under four and a half minutes adrift of event winner Jorik Van Egdom of the Netherlands. Morpeth Harrier Jonny Taylor travelled to Brighton on Sunday 17th April,
to take part in the annual 10k that is also run in conjunction with the Marathon, which is part of a weekend festival of running in the Sussex seaside town. Taylor was also defending the title that he won in 2015 in a new personal best time of 29m12s. On Sunday however, despite setting a new figure of 29m11s, he narrowly lost out for victory to fellow International Adam Hickey of Southend, by a margin of nine seconds. It was a complete reversal of the 2015 event, where Hickey had finished second, and eight seconds adrift of Taylor. Morpeth Harriers Senior Men travelled to Sutton Park, Sutton Coldfield on Saturday 16th April, in defence of their English National 12 Stage Road Relay title that they very handsomely won for the very first time, at the well established Midlands venue twelve months ago. Being without key runners such as Jonny Taylor, Nick Swinburn and Carl Avery did not help their cause however, and despite the inclusion of Peter Newton, who had run the fastest long stage time at the Northern Championships at Sunderland, plus Ian Hudspith and Ady Whitwam, they couldn’t quite match the dominance of winners Highgate Harriers, second placed Aldershot and Farnham and third placed Bristol and West, nor fellow Northerner’s Liverpool Harriers, who after some very good later leg performances, came through to finish fourth, and take the title as first Northern club. However in finishing eighth, around six minutes adrift of the winners, and nearly four minutes adrift of the medals, Morpeth fared better than the Northern Championships, in taking second spot behind Liverpool. At Sunderland they had finished third behind Salford Harriers, who on this occasion could only finish fourteenth, and just over five minutes adrift, and Northern Silver Medallists Leeds City, a further two places and nearly a minute adrift. Again it was Newton who shone, by clocking Morpeth’s fastest long stage time of 26m27s, which saw them move into the top ten for the first time in the contest. Newton won back three places on his leg, after Kevin Calvert had lost a couple of places on Leg Six, with his clocking of 16m24s. Ross Floyd had got them in to tenth place on Leg Five, with his clocking of 27m58s. The first four legs by Sam Hancox (27m17s), Ian Harding (16m10s), Andy Wiles (27m08s), and young 12 Stage debutant Adam Gibbs (16m51s) had seen Morpeth into a good eleventh place, and not that far adrift of the leading clubs in terms of time. After Newton’s excellent seventh leg, Thomas Straughan lifted Morpeth up a further place to eighth, courtesy of a tenth fastest of the leg clocking of 16m34s. Ian Hudspith’s excellent second fastest of the leg clocking of 26m46s on the ninth leg, saw Morpeth hold on to eighth place, however Lewis Timmins’s superb 15m55s, easily the clubs fastest short stage performance, also fourth fastest of the leg, got them into what was to be their highest placing of the day of fifth, with two legs remaining. Ady Whitwam on the penultimate eleventh leg aggravated a slight back injury that he had sustained during a midweek training session in preparation for his forthcoming appearance in this weekend’s London Marathon, which unfortunately for both him and his club began to restrict his ability to keep up a good pace on his close rivals, as he slipped to eighth with his clocking of 28m20s. Morpeth were now two minutes away from fourth, and nearly four minutes adrift of the medal placings as twelfth and final leg runner Chris Smith set off in hot pursuit of any particular glory he could chase down. Despite clocking 16m38s on his short leg, he couldn’t quite get closer to the rivals in front of him, and came home to a final placing of eighth out of 64 finishing clubs on the course, that also included a Morpeth Harriers B team, which finished in 51st place overall, and were fifth B team overall. Their fastest clocking on the Long Stage, came from John Butters, who had not run at the venue since his days as a youngster. John clocked 28m52s, which took the Morpeth B team up by six places on the fifth leg to 49th, which was to be their highest placing of the day. Morpeth B team’s fastest Short Stage clocking came on second leg, courtesy of Elliot Kelly, who posted a time of 17m40s, to take the squad up five places to 51st, following Jordan Scott’s 29m54s on the Long First Leg, which saw them in 56th place. Other B team clockings came from, Leg Three Mark Snowball (50th) 29m40s, Leg Four Jim Alder (55th) 21m00s, Leg Six Steve Haswell (51st) 20m04s, Leg Seven Michael Thomsen (53rd) 32m09s, Leg Eight David Swinburne (51st) 17m45s, Leg Nine, Rob Hancox (51st) 32m15s, Leg Ten Chris Waugh (51st) 20m02s, Leg Eleven Paul Waterston (51st) 32m03s, and Mark Brown (51st) 18m25s. Unfortunately an injury to Laura Weightman, and the unavailability of Emma Holt,
meant that Morpeth Harriers Senior Women did not line-up as hoped in their 6 Stage Road Relay, which was won by Aldershot and Farnham. Morpeth Harriers latest recipient of the Linden Homes Athlete of the Month Award
was the perfect example of a very young talent who decided to try out an event, took a liking for it, worked on it with more than a little help from her coach, and then paid rich dividends by becoming a regional champion, and excelled as a winner in every sense of the word, and climbed up the UK Rankings, where she now sits as nineteenth in her Under 13 age group for 60m Hurdles on the Indoor Circuit. Amy Lott became the North Eastern Counties Indoor Champion at the very end of January, however during February she excelled even more by improving her time to 10.44s at an Indoor Standards Meeting at Gateshead, her previous best having been the 10.55s that she had clocked at the January Championships. Her progression has been quite remarkable under the watchful eye of her Coach Dave Thomas, her first attempt at the event having been in early January, where she had clocked a best of 10.83s. Amy is pictured above receiving her Linden Homes Certificate of Achievement as Morpeth Harriers Athlete of the Month for February 2016, from the club’s Press Officer George Patterson, at the clubhouse on Mitford Road, on Monday 11th April 2016. After taking part in Saturday’s Park Run in South Shields and crossing the line in first place,
Morpeths Mark Snowball headed back to South Tyneside on Sunday to take part in the annual Sand Dancer 10k Multi Terrain Race, organised by South Shields Harriers. Snowball, who also recently finished third in the North Tyneside 10k, and ran well in his club’s Bronze medal winning Northern 12 Stage Road Relay squad at Sunderland last Saturday, finished fourth in 34m24s. The next Morpeth Harriers finisher in the event was Paul Banks, who finished 40th in a time of 40m27s, and was 13th Over 40 Veteran Man. Ten places behind Paul was fellow Morpeth Veteran Peter Scaife, who clocked 41m25s, and was 8th Over 50 Man, and 5th in the North East Masters Championship, which was incorporated into the event. Morpeth Harriers were fourth Men’s team, with the scoring count being closed by James McFetrich, who finished 73rd in 42m50s, and was 21st Over 40 Man. Other Morpeth Harriers results were as follows Richard Kirby (78th) (23rd O/40 Man) 43m07s, Paul Bentley (171st) (9th O/60) (2nd NEMAA) 48m31s, Jane Kirby (215th) (56th Lady) (28th O/40 Lady) 51m37s, Jacinta Wake (305th) (113th Lady) (27th O/45 Lady) 59m14s, Carol Parry (306th) (114th Lady) (28th O/45 Lady) 59m14s, and Susan Smith (307th) (29th O/45) 59m14s. There were 400 finishers in the event. |
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