Club members are being invited to take part in a multi-terrain run around Morpeth on New Year's Day - the traditional date of the club's annual winter road race.
After a year in which the traditional race calendar has been decimated due to Covid, the club is pleased to be organising a special one-off free event for members only on 1 January. The multi-terrain run, organised by Kevin Bray, can be treated by participants as a race, social run, training run or whatever you like. The idea is to get out and enjoy the fresh air and some socially-distanced company with your club mates.
Runners will be set off in waves (number in a wave and time between waves dependent on entry). The first wave will set off at 10.30am. The course will follow a marshalled and marked route (see map below): From HIGH STANNERS, through CARLISLE PARK, along the river UNDER TELFORD BRIDGE (steps up and down), BENNETTS WALK, cross the BLUE BRIDGE, riverside path behind MORRISONS, riverside path to WHORRAL BANK road, along pavement past EAST MILL, turn right across FOOTBRIDGE at the kennels, left on PUBLIC FOOTPATH along the river under the railway viaduct, up the STEEP HILL and around the field, turn right on footpath across the field and DESCEND steep hill back to bridge beside the kennels. Return to FINISH by reversing the outgoing route. If the route under Oldgate Bridge and under Telford Bridge is flooded an alternative start / finish location will be notified to entrants. The course is approximates 9.3km with 132m of climb and a mixture of tarmac, hard packed trails, woodland tracks and pasture. Trail-type shoes are recommended - you're going to get muddy! If you would like to take part:
The funeral service for Hudson Stoker will take place on Friday this week. Please note however that this is a private cremation, sadly, with no room in the chapel. A link to the funeral service via video, however, is attached below, along with some words from George, who would like to thank all who sent sympathy and wishes.
Date and time: 11 December, 10.30am Website: www.obitus.com User name: Rade0236 Password: 935601 View: Live and watch again Because of current COVID-19 restrictions, we are being firmly being told to discouraged from allowing people outside those family members invited from attending, and instead to use the video link provided to view. At this time, Sheila (Hudson’s Sister), Jeff (Hudson’s Brother in law), and Hudson’s immediate family, along with myself, wish to thank all those members who have sent kind words of sympathy and wishes. Hudson fought bravely on to the very end in such circumstances, and although it was traumatic throughout, I would never ever have let him down, and I am indeed proud to have had such a kind and resourceful friend and soul mate and devoted partner right to the very end. I shall miss him dearly, and he will never be forgotten for as long as I live myself. George Following the lifting of lockdown we are in position to resume training and the reopening of the clubhouse and track.
As you are no doubt aware, however, the North East has been placed within the highest tier of restrictions, Tier 3, and it is of paramount importance that we follow the guidance presented by England Athletics in their most recent statement. Can we please ask all members to check this guidance themselves. The key point for us as a club is that training in groups of over 6 is only permitted in outdoor, organised group-coached sessions. Sorry to be a killjoy, but nor should there be any socialising before and after sessions. The clubhouse will therefore reopen for training on Monday 7th December. The track is now also open again. Can we again remind all athletes and parents of the following:
The club has worked hard to get the track open once again. Please make sure you have informed your coach of your presence there if you are going. Do not just turn up. One toilet will now be open at the track. Can athletes please only use this if it is necessary to do so and respect the following procedures: one in, one out only; no personal possessions to be left inside – it is a toilet only, not a storage area for e.g. mobile phones; hands to be sanitised on entry and exit; coaches to clean all door handles on opening and closing the facility. We thank athletes and parents once again for all of your support and cooperation in these challenging times. Morpeth Harriers are sorry to report the death at 73 of Life Member and club stalwart Hudson Stoker after a lengthy period of illness. Hudson – just plain Hud to his many friends in the club – joined Morpeth in 1986 at the same time as his lifetime companion George Patterson. Competing at a decent standard for the club, he very quickly became however one of those people upon whom all clubs come to depend, someone not frightened of responsibility or hard work, but rather prepared to put in the graft over a wide range of jobs to enable the club to operate effectively. He took to announcing at meets easily (a little known fact about him is that he had, in fact, DJ’d when younger at Newcastle’s legendary Club a Go Go) and his voice came to be a natural, welcoming and expected part of the ambience at track meets and cross countries. He announced at club meetings, at the legendary Morpeth-Newcastle road race, at the North Eastern Grand Prix at Monkton and Gateshead, at North East Harrier Leagues and, further afield, at major Northern and National XC Championships and Road Relays. Calmness and organisation were attributes that came naturally to him, and he was rarely if ever deterred by the utterly wretched winter conditions of snow, rain and cold that sometimes prevailed. Track and field meetings at Morpeth saw him present from 8.30 in the morning, already putting out signs and helping with the practicalities, and then one of the last to leave after clearing up. He also had to master the various league results systems – no easy task – and was a key member of the club’s results teams for our own New Year’s Day and 10k promotions. He was hugely instrumental in the club’s publicity efforts, putting together the old Runaround magazine with George for several years, and then setting up the club’s first website in 2001. Very much a labour of love, he continually updated and added to it, often with photographs which he himself somehow found time to take at the many meetings he attended. The photographic displays in the clubhouse, illustrating the club’s many achievements over the years, and those accompanying the annual presentation evening, were his work. As our Membership Secretary he put together the club’s membership database, and as a Monday night regular at the clubhouse, he was there behind the desk, the first person prospective members and their parents would meet. Many Morpeth Harriers have commented on how welcoming, kind and thoughtful he was to them when they joined the club, and then how fantastically encouraging he was to all, irrespective of their abilities, always ready with a kind word and a smile. Diagnosed with leukemia in 2011, Hud fought a long battle with ill-health but this rarely if ever deterred him from what he saw as his duty to the club, or indeed from him attending the many meetings, whether Track and Field or Cross-country, that he drove to with George throughout the year. The love and respect in which he was long held are clear from the many tributes paid to him via the club’s social media, many reaching for the same words: gentle, a gentleman, kind, thoughtful, a great servant. He was part of the lifeblood of our club and he will be a big miss, not just to us but to the wider community of Northern Athletics. The club extends its sympathies to his family knowing that we have some big shoes to fill. Perhaps the last words are best left to his longtime companion George Patterson: "I was very lucky to have Hudson as a friend for 52 years." Morpeth Harrier Lorna Macdonald completed an extraordinary 100-mile challenge in the early hours of Thursday morning last week, and in the process raised well over £1,000 for St. Oswald’s Hospice.
Army nurse Lorna had signed herself up to complete the Centurion Running Challenge, which encouraged all who did so to complete 100 miles in the course of one week. But, never one to make life easy for herself, Lorna decided to have a go at doing so in the course of one 24-hour period. No stranger to long distances, having been a past winner of the women’s race in the Kielder Marathon, Lorna had previously completed a 76 mile ‘longest night’ run to raise money for Shelter in 2018 but even she admitted that her latest challenge was ‘ridiculous’ and ‘crazy’. Supported by family, friends and club colleagues, she began on Wednesday morning with some speedy laps of Coopies Lane Industrial Estate but, after a good 30 or so miles – already over full marathon distance – ran into some problems with back pain. Never one to be deterred, she gritted her teeth, pushed herself through the pain barrier and ran on into the night, moving to loops of Lancaster Park and the Stanners. With only occasional breaks for the toilet, a change of clothes and a refuel, while the rest of the town slept, she drove herself on, tweeting only after 70 miles, ’13 hours 15 minutes since I started. Good god. Sos.’ Day break saw her within sight of the 100 miles however, which she completed after 20 hours 28 minutes, well within her original 24 hour target. Extraordinarily, excluding breaks she ran at an average of just over 10 minute miles, with a fastest mile of 7 minutes 41 seconds and a slowest of only 11m 52 s, recording 173,058 steps and burning some 12, 367 calories into the process. Describing her run as ‘hands down THE hardest thing I’ve ever done’, her determination to complete the challenge came as no surprise to members of her loyal family or many supporters who have witnessed her mental toughness and huge aptitude for training over the years. Conscious of how the charity sector has been badly hit during the current Covid-19 crisis, Lorna had set herself the task of raising £500 for St. Oswald’s Hospice, but has easily surpassed her original target, raising nearly £1,500 for the work of the hospice so far. Contributions can still be made via her dedicated Just Giving page. |
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