Dear all,
I wanted to raise some money for charity this year and I am supporting Cancer Research UK, (in memory of my younger sister Julie), The Motor Neurone Disease Association (in memory of a good friend Anne Allan and to support Helen Brunton), and The North of Tyne Mountain Rescue Team (in memory of good friends Jon Trafford and Stephen Jones). Way back in 1990 the legendary Lake District fell runner Joss Naylor devised a challenge for the "over 50" fell runner. It was to traverse 30 Lakeland summits between Pooley Bridge and Joss Naylors home at Greendale Bridge near Wasdale. It was 48 miles long, north east to south west across the Lake District tops and it meant 17,000 feet of climbing ! Since then its become known as "THE JOSS" ! I am attempting to complete the Joss on Saturday 17/6/17. It's a time limited challenge and I have to complete the route inside 15 hours to receive one of the coveted JNC tankards (originally sponsored by another legend Chris Brasher who regarded Joss Naylor as "the greatest ever fell runner" - fittingly the tankards are now sponsored by Jennings Brewery!). Now the road runners reading this will think "48 miles divided by 15 = ONLY 3.2 miles per hour" but believe me it's not quite as simple as that! Now factor in, FITNESS, AGE, ASCENT, DESCENT (59 year old knees don't bounce any more!),TERRAIN, WEATHER, NAVIGATION, FOOD & DRINK etc. Anyone who has done a "proper" fell race will know what I mean ! If you want to know more about the JOSS, details (including the various time limits for both ladies and gents) can be found here; http://jossnaylor.blogspot.co.uk You might read this and be daft enough to fancy a go at it (but only if your old enough!). If you can spare some cash any sponsorship would really be appreciated and my Virgin Money Giving page is here; http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/KevinBray1 Thanks for reading this and please, if you donate, can you leave me a message on my page because your support is going to keep me going when it get's tough - and the only thing I know for sure about this challenge is that it WILL be tough ! Thanks in anticipation, Kevin Bray 0789 6055 794 Six athletes from Morpeth Harriers took part in the second in the series of BMC Regional Standards Meetings, held at Chester Le Street, on a very wet evening on Monday 5th June 2017. Despite the appalling conditions, four out of the six in action managed to achieve new personal best performances, out of a total of forty-seven in all, who contested the ten 1500m races on offer. In the second fastest race of the night, double North-Eastern Counties Silver medallist Taylor Glover managed to knock nearly four seconds off his previous best, when finishing third, and posting a time of 4m04.18s. Six athletes from Morpeth Harriers took part in the second in the series of BMC Regional Standards Meetings, held at Chester Le Street, on a very wet evening on Monday 5th June 2017. Despite the appalling conditions, four out of the six in action managed to achieve new personal best performances, out of a total of forty-seven in all, who contested the ten 1500m races on offer. In the second fastest race of the night, double North-Eastern Counties Silver medallist Taylor Glover managed to knock nearly four seconds off his previous best, when finishing third, and posting a time of 4m04.18s. Fellow Morpeth Harrier Jordan Scott, competing in the same race, finished sixth, posting a time of 4m07.46s, improving on his previous best by almost two seconds. In his first ever 1500m, Joe Ramshaw finished second in the third fastest race of the night, posting an excellent 4m08.52s, which proved to be the twelfth fastest overall. Double North-Eastern Counties Champion Holly Peck could feel very pleased, and somewhat relieved to take one second off her previous best, when finishing eighth in a mixed seventh fastest race. She posted new figures of 4m49.61s, which also made her the fastest of all eleven Under 15 Girls competing on the night, and possibly sees her inside the English Schools qualifying standard. Another Under 15 Girl in action was her club colleague Rhiannon Hedley, who was a little adrift of her personal best in the ninth fastest race. She posted a time of 5m16.10s, which was ninth fastest of her age group. Elder brother Kieran competed in the fastest race of the night, finishing fourth in 4m03.4s, which although was outside his best, was third fastest of the Under 20 Men’s performances Throwing a brand new personal best of 42.27m, not only gave Morpeth Harrier Bobbie Griffiths an outstanding victory in the Women’s Javelin event at the second round of the Northern Athletics Senior Track and Field League Division 2E on Sunday 4th June 2017, held at Hexham’s Wentworth Stadium, it also pushed the talented Under 17 athlete to the top of the UK Rankings for her age group. In addition to this performance, Griffiths also won the B String Discus, with a best of 29.10m, and her throw of 33.11m, gave her second place in the A String Hammer. Claire Reid of Morpeth also performed well, by finishing second in the A String Discus with 29.68m, accompanied by a very welcome win in the B String Hammer (30.11m), also a second place in the B String Javelin (17.39m), and a third place in the A String Shot Putt (9.23m) Backing up Reid well in the B String Shot Putt for Morpeth was Naomi Arkle, who finished third with a best of 6.66m. Arkle, was to have her moment of glory a little later in the afternoon however, when she was part of a truly excellent Morpeth Women’s 4 x 100m victory in 51.1s, alongside younger sister Nadine, who was not only making her Northern League debut, but also a running comeback after almost eleven months of relative inactivity due to a succession of injuries, plus regular relay specialist Jessica Young-Rogers, and another Morpeth debutant Kayla Devon. Devon also produced a good result in the Triple Jump, finishing as second A String, with a best performance of 10.40m. Backing her up in the B String was fellow debutant Katie Stafford, who also finished second, with her best jump of 8.17m. On to the Men’s events, where Morpeth had two A string winners in Alistair Douglass, who clocked a new personal best of 1m59.3s in the 800m, and Thomas Straughan, who won the 5000m in 15m31.7s, which also represented a new personal best. Jake Masterman, very nearly added a third A String victory for Morpeth in the 3000m Steeplechase, only losing out by a fraction of a second in the final run in, to Leeds City athlete Mohammed Abshir. Masterman posted a finishing time of 10m12.6s, which also represented a new personal best performance. Backing him up well in an excellent winning B String performance, the only one of the day, was Mark Snowball, who clocked 10m25.8s, which equalled his personal best performance, that he had achieved at Morpeth last July. Snowball had earlier tasted some individual glory in the 400m Hurdles B race, by pipping Gateshead specialist Richard Kaufman for second place, posting a time of 69.8s. Another good Morpeth track performance came in the 100m, where Sean O’Hara finished second in the A race in 11.7s, with Kenny Harrison getting second in the B race in 12.1s. This pairing also lined up in the 200m, where O’Hara again finished as second A String in 23.6s, and Harrison was fourth B string in 24.5s. North Eastern Under 17 Men’s 400m champion Matthew Waterfield finished as third A String in 51.2s, and Mitchell Cryer finished as fourth B string in 67.8s. In the Men’s Field events, Morpeth welcomed back Craig Charlton to league action following injury. His best result came in the Shot Putt, where he finished as second A String, with a best of 12.96m, being backed up by Steven Appleby’s fifth in the B String with 8.19m. The pair also performed well in the Hammer, where Charlton finished as third A String, with a best of 27.82m, with Appleby throwing 20.18m for fifth in the B String. Appleby also produced respectable performances of 32.67m and 20.15m in the A String Discus and Javelin events, finishing fourth and sixth respectively. In the B String Discus, Charlton finished second, with a best of 30.23m. David Thomas finished third in the A String Triple Jump (12.09m), and fifth in both the A String Long and High Jump events, with 5.39m and 1.50m respectively. In the Men’s 4 x 100m Relay, Morpeth finished third in 47.3s, courtesy of Kenny Harrison, Jake Jardine, Mitchell Cryer, and Sean O’Hara. Alistair Douglass, Jake Jardine, Jake Masterman, and Matthew Waterfield all lined up in a Morpeth 4 x 400m squad, who managed to finish fourth in 3m45.3s. FINAL MATCH RESULT (Subject to further scrutiny) 1st Tynedale Harriers 347pts, 2nd Gateshead Harriers 341pts, 3rd Middlesbrough AC 336pts, 4th Leeds City 329pts, 5th Morpeth Harriers 325pts, 6th Skyrac AC 306pts. Currently after two matches, with two still remaining, Morpeth Harriers remain
rooted to the foot of the table with a total of 4.5 league points. However, both matches so far have been very close, a slightly better turnout from some athletes would help resolve what looks like developing a relegation issue. The next fixture is at home at Morpeth on Sunday 9th July, when Team Managers David Swinburne (Men), and Mike Bateman (Women), would hope to have a stronger team at their disposal Under 17 athlete Daniel Melling of Morpeth Harriers was just a mere second adrift of his personal best time of 17m17s, when he crossed the line in first place, in the Newcastle Park Run on Saturday 3rd June 2017. Not far behind him in third place, was his more Senior club colleague Rob Morris, who posted a time of 17m25s, which was his first run on that particular course. Another excellent Morpeth first finisher on Saturday was John Butters, who was first over the line at
Wallsend Rising Sun, who clocked a good 16m36s for the 5k distance, this also being his first time on the course. |
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