Sunday saw some fine racing from our athletes in different areas of the country.

Jonny McLean had a fantastic race at the Trafford 10k, finishing in a time of 35:11 (5.41 minute miling) – absolutely fantastic racing Jonny!

Further down south and from what we understand in very foggy conditions the Bedford Autodrome Sprint Duathlon took place in 1 degree (!) and 25m visibility.  Competition was high for Ryan Parry and Dave Morley, who both had excellent races over the 5k – 20k – 2.5k course.  Ryan finished 23rd overall in a time of 57:01 (that includes a 16:31 5k) and 6th in age group (25-29) and Dave finished in 1:02:16, 103 overall and 11th in age group – cracking races!

A little further North and Matt Hallam raced again!  For the third weekend in a row!  This time at the Seagrave Charity Duathlon – a 5k run, 23k bike and 5k run.  Matt was crowned king with yet another 1st and three and a half minutes ahead of the next competitor.

Finally, and from the ladies camp, Jenni Muston raced at the Spen 20, a notoriously tough running road race over 20 miles in Yorkshire. Quite a bit warmer than Bedford and with the sun beaming down, Jen was able to pick up a bit of a tan. A hard race, Jen finished as 9th lady, on track for a good London Marathon once she has full use of her legs again!

Get comfy with a cuppa – this is going to be good…

Red Buttons on the BBC were pressed on Saturday to watch the first of the 2016 ITU series in Abu Dhabi where our very own Adam Bowden and Tom Bishop put in tremendous performances finishing in 11th and 32nd respectively.  The actual times which Adam and Tom posted were phenomenal – to put things into perspective, Adam finished just 1 minute 11 seconds behind the winner Mario Mola and Tom finished just 2 minutes 46 seconds behind Mola. It made for exciting watching from our sofas – absolutely tremendous racing!

Back in Blighty in colder climes, Matt Hallam is making a habit of double racing days and this time scored TWO 1st podiums! Saturday Matt raced at the Lancaster Sprint Duathlon taking the win 20 seconds ahead of the silver position then raced down to Ely for the more racing at the Monster Duathlon crushing the next competitor over the sprint distance by 56 seconds. What a performance!

Finally, Ady Stott, so deservedly of this mention, smashed out his 250th very impressive parkrun on Saturday! Will we be writing about his 500th?

****STOP PRESS****

Matt Hallam scored two podiums at the weekend in his first races (!) of the season. A silver was added to Matt’s growing trophy cupboard at the inaugural Rother Valley Duathlon (sprint distance) on Saturday.  Not far behind the race leader, Matt put in 6 minutes over third position!

Then, after the Jackpot Awards evening on Saturday night, Matt headed south to Worcester after an early start for the Peopleton Duathlon run by Worcester Tri Club and hit gold! Just under a full minute ahead of the next position.

A fantastic start to 2016!

The English National Cross Country race took place on new ground on Saturday at Donington Park.  An unexpected hilly course took many runners by surprise.  Mud was sticky as opposed to wet and slushy!  Two of our ladies took part in the senior womens race over the 8k course.  Jenni Muston finished 155th out of 739 finishers, and Claire Pickersgill finished not far behind time wise in 275th position. David Bishop raced in the senior mens race (12k) finishing 122nd overall out of …wait for it…1730 finishers!  The quality of both fields was exceptional!

Sunday saw the Huddersfield 10k and Claire Pickersgill was out again! Claire finished as 8th female and 1st in her age group in a strong, fast time over yet another hilly course! Superb racing!

We know that Tom Linton-Neal won the UTC Duathlon outright on Sunday – more news to follow on this podium!

A weekend of running results this weekend starting off with the Wombwell 5 near Barnsley and a very hilly run saw Claire Pickersgill finish as 8th lady in a time of 34.59.  Claire has had a pesky returning calf injury but her strength on the bike sees her in good form still for running and the up and coming European Duathlon Champs at Kalkar in April!

Up to Ilkley and the Ilkley Moor fell race – 8k and 401m of climbing – was held on Sunday.  Tim Ashelford popped in to take part in the tough race finishing 123rd overall and 6th in his age category 🙂

New athlete to the team Gordon Kilroy started off the year well at the infamous Brass Monkey Half Marathon in January with a cracking time of 1:19:49, 78th overall and 18th in the Vet 40 category.  This is a PB for Gordon – Gordon believes it was the overindulgence at Christmas which gave him the rocket fuel on the day!

Lastly, Jonny McLean had a great run at the Dewsbury 10k last week in a speedy time of 36:55.

Flying starts to the new season 🙂