Harriers on the Fells

South of England Championships — and at the New Forest Marathon

Harriers came away with two medals from this year’s South of England Fell Running Championships held on the Isle of Wight. Laurie McNamee followed up her Gold medal, championship winning, performance of last year with third place overall and Bronze medal this year, and Paul Chadwick won the silver in the V40 category.

The Championships consist of three tough races of varying distance held over Saturday and Sunday with all three races to be completed to count in the standings. Race 1 is 3 miles, 800 foot of ascent; Race 2 is 7 miles long and 1500 foot of climb, and Race 3 on the Sunday morning is 13 miles and 1500 foot of climb.

Highlight for Laurie from the three races was a time of 21.49 for 2nd place amongst the women at the first race, and she then followed that up with a strong 3rd and a 6th place in the subsequent races to confirm her bronze medal position. Paul achieved a 27th, 21st and 19th in the three successive races, which was good enough for him to secure his first medal at these Championships since last medalling back in the 1990’s.
Aiden Phippard and Peter Wright also contested the first two races of the weekend. Aiden is in training with Laurie for the forthcoming Karrimoor Mountain Marathon, whilst Peter was making a welcome return to racing after a long break.

On behalf of the South of England Athletic Association, the Harrier’s Chairman again presented the awards to the winning athletes including the overall winners, junior England international Dean Lacey of Cambridge Harriers, and Ryde Harrier’s Austrian athlete Ulla Korenjak.

Harrier’s positions and times in the 3 races: Laurie King, 2nd 21.49; 3rd 67.41; 6th 1.48.14; Paul Chadwick 27th 22.00; 21st 67.05; 19th 1.43.43; Aidan Phippard 22nd 21.41; 30th 69.43; Peter Wright 54th 26.22; 47th 76.14.

Also competing this past Sunday were the Harriers pair from Bruton, Sue and Tim Hamblin at the New Forest Marathon. Both achieved personal bests despite the heat, with Sue going below 4 hours for the first time with 3.59.57, and Tim completing in 3.42, some 25 minutes quicker than previously. Well done to both!