VSAC report for VSCC – January 2016

It was agreed at the last VS Committee Meeting that the Athletics section should provide a monthly report for the Cycling section and vice versa, so here’s the first one from VSAC.

It’s been a very busy month for our competitive runners.

On 3^rd January, 12 juniors and 38 adults took part in the Peco Cross-Country (XC) races at Middleton Park.  Tally Diamond, Keira Jones and Imogen Idle were the first 3 girls in the school years 4-6 category and Alvie O’Brien 3^rd boy in the same age group.  The ladies adult team was 3^rd with VS yoga teacher Liz Wood 20^th and Sue Sunderland 1^st W55-59 in 33^rd place of nearly 300 lady runners.  The men’s team were 1^st  with Ali Burns (Crosstrax CC) amongst the men’s team counters, and also highly placed were Richard Drake and Andy Stoneman.

NB In case you’re wondering, “Peco” stands for “Printing and Embroidery Company” which is the sponsor of the league.

On 9^th January, 2 girls, 6 ladies and 10 men took part in the Yorkshire XC Championships at Lightwater Valley.  Tally Diamond finished 12^th and Keira Jones 24^th in the U-13 category.  The women’s team finished 8^th and the men’s team 5^th; first counter was Matt Hallam.

On 10^th January, 25 Striders took part in a 10 mile off road race at Templenewsam, Danny Murray finishing 31^st of 651.

On 17^th January, 10 Striders ran the Brass Monkey half marathon road race at York.  John Hobbs, Andy May and Matt Hallam came away with the team prize.  Ruth Warren was 1^st over-60 lady in 1:40:24.

On 24^th January, it was another Peco XC race this time at Golden Acre Park.  11 juniors and 39 adults competed.  Tally and Keira were 1^st and 2^nd again, Alvie 2^nd.  The ladies were 2^nd and the men 1^st, with Ali counting again and Vernon Long highly placed.

On 30^th January, 2 girls, 4 ladies and 6 men went to the Northern XC at Blackburn.  This was the first time our juniors had been to a regional competition and Keira Jones (U13) and Sophie Turner (U15) both finished in the top half of their races.  The ladies team was 24^th and the men 22^nd with Matt Hallam our leading runner.

We send out club emails approximately weekly (not quite as regularly as Joel’s VSCC emails) and then upload them to our website, so if you want to see the full results of these races, go to www.valleystriders.org.uk/vsupdate.htm , where you’ll also find recent race reports from Helvellyn, Brecon and Halifax, and a cautionary tale from Richard Adcock of how he got scratched running through brambles in a XC race and later that week ended up in hospital for 4 days.

Even with all this competitive racing, the usual level of social racing (i.e. parkruns and junior parkruns) has continued and notable milestones have been Alex Watson-Usher’s 100^th parkrun and Neil Hall’s 150^th .

Our Tuesday and Thursday training sessions remain popular as does our pie’n’peas or lasagne food after training (usually 1^st and 3^rd Tuesdays in the month). Spring marathon training is now in full swing - many will be doing London (Myra Jones has a Championship place); others at Paris, Copenhagen, Manchester, Edinburgh, Blackpool etc, so the Sunday long run is therefore quite busy and has split into two different paced groups.

Finally, a bit of advertising - VSCC members can try three running sessions for free.  Go to the website main page to see what sessions are available and/or email [email protected] .