REPORT BY: WILL WORBOYS

ILKLEY Harriers sent two strong teams to take part in one of the highlights of the fell running calendar, the Hodgson Brothers Mountain relay, on Saturday.

The annual relay race accepted 70 teams in total who took on a challenging route through the Lake District. Each of the four legs is run in pairs and Ilkley’s men’s team had an excellent run to finish 22nd overall.

The first pair of Sam Bentham and Oli Murphy had got the team off to a cracking start finishing the leg in 3rd place. The rest of the men’s team consisted of; Paul Carman and Gavin Lamb on leg two, Michael Odell and Iain Gibbons on leg three; with Ben Rothery and Jack Gribbin completing the final leg of the route, which is approximately 22.4 miles in total with 8860ft ascent.

The ladies team also had an excellent run at the event, which is based at Patterdale near Ullswater, to finish in 66th.

Their team consisted of Rebecca Mon Williams and Jane McCarthy on leg one, Jann Smith and Katie Poulter on leg two, Alison Weston and Kelly Wilby on leg three and Rachel Carter and Kate Archer on leg four.

Meanwhile on Sunday morning was the first race of this year’s West Yorkshire Cross Country league series and there were surprisingly good underfoot conditions. There were several races for juniors at Nunroyd Park in Guiseley, followed by the senior men’s and women’s races run separately.

Only Alison Bennett from Ilkley braved the women’s race which, in a throwback to medieval times, is significantly shorter than the men’s, finishing the 5.5KM course in an admirable 51st position and first in her age group.

In the 9.5KM men’s race Ed Hobbs and Christos Tzelis were in the lead group of four right from the gun and had a great battle throughout the race with the lead changing hands on almost every lap.

Tzelis just had the edge in the final couple of hundred metres but was narrowly beaten in a terrific sprint battle with Abdimajiid Darood of Skyrac by just three seconds, with Hobbs finishing only seven seconds behind Christos in 4th place.

The pair of them, together with good placings from Dan McKeown, Steve Gott, Tim Ashelford and Dave Westhead, who all did well in their age categories, gave Ilkley the 5th team place. Also, out there flying the Harriers flag were Adam Gerrish, Danny Thompson and Stephen Morris, all having great runs.

Away from the mud and uneven terrain there have been a couple of big city half marathons taking place recently, with significant involvement from Ilkley Harriers. Last weekend Tom Adams had won the Humber Bridge Half, in an incredible time of 1:09:35.

The performance was so good that it broke the Harriers club record, for both the V35 and V40 male category!

Whilst this weekend in Cardiff, Steve Coy posted an excellent time of 1:26:51 to finish in 599th place of over 22,000 participants, which included a strong elite field. Gaenor Coy also did very well to come well inside the top half in a time of 2:04:18.

Staying with road racing, at the Morley 10K Sally Armitage came storming back from a quiet few months to finish as first lady.

The popular race which took place on Sunday morning, is described intriguingly as; “a closed road course around the historic streets of Morley with two out and back sections and (possibly uniquely) a 3-way crossover section at the legendary 'Morley Bottoms'.”

Armitage expertly navigated the “Morley Bottoms” to finish in a superb time of 39:18. There were two other representatives from Ilkley present. Alex Foyn did brilliantly to finish in 10th place of the 859 total finishers in a time of 37:41, while Natalie Gravett-Foyn was in 286th place in a time of 53:45.

To the weekly parkrun results. There was a large contingent of representatives from the Harriers this week. This was partly down to the event at Lister Park being on the race league calendar, but also no doubt the draw of celebrating this weekend’s 20th anniversary of the birth of parkrun. The phenomenon of parkrun now has over 10 million people signed up worldwide, after starting with just 13 participants who took part in the ‘Bushy Park Time Trial’ in London in October 2004.

At Lister Park the first-place finisher was Ilkley’s Matthew Thackwray, who was followed by Mark Hall in 5th. Jonathan Turner, Owen Parker, John Hayes, Peter Shelley, Adam Gerrish and Sarah Hayes all managed top 20 finishes in a dominant Ilkley showing.

Elsewhere there was a good showing from Samesh Chotai again who was 2nd at Skipton, followed by James Horrex in 5th. At Cliffe Castle Rob Cunningham was 2nd finisher and at Roberts Park Jaysson Sawyer was 8th. Geoffrey Howard, as is often the case, topped the age grading table with a score of 82.96% following his time of 25:20 at Wetherby.