Race Report 11th October 2022

Warning mega race report inbound!

Up and down the country and even overseas athletes from Team Blizard have once again turned in some amazing performances. Saturday as well as all the great performances in local Park Run events also saw the first of the West Yorkshire cross country league take place ( yes, it’s that time of year again almost! ).

Ever consistent Susie Hinchcliffe swapped her usual road racing shoes for her off road shoes to run a highly respectable position in the ladies race over at Wakefield on what was a challenging course.

Staying with Saturday our own sponsored athlete Lee Milburn traveled to Birmingham to put the final touches to his marathon preparations with a fine leg for his running club Rotherham Harriers in the National Road Relay championships

Moving into Sunday and we move up in distances for the benefit of this report we next mention the well organized Curly’s Athletes event at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park 5k. It was 2nd place all round to shout about as father and son duo of Lee and Dave Varley took 2nd place each in their respective age groups while Sarah Bannister from North Leeds Fell Runners showed just how much the Blizard Run Club strength and conditioning platform has helped her as she took 2nd place overall in the ladies placings.

Next race up in distance was the Shelton Striders 10k race near Derby where coached athlete Paul Massey not only beat his old best ever time but smashed it out the window with a massive new personal best which shapes well for his marathon in December.

Now up another level to the half marathon distance and we have two races to report from in firstly the Manchester half marathon where we saw long time clinic supporter Shaun Johnson of North Derbyshire put in a fine performance as did coached athlete Simon Kendal who showed a great turn around in form and fitness from a few short weeks ago, well done you two!

Further south in the Royal Parks half marathon it was good to see Scotty B return to racing after some time away with a niggle while Stuart Gough in his first ever race managed to run a very impressive 1.40hrs for his first ever race of any distance!

This leads us nicely to our featured overseas race in the Chicago marathon as our marathon season continues! The results from Berlin and London so far have been fantastic and Chicago certainly did not disappoint. Collecting her 3rd Major marathon medal was Rachael McCluskey running under 4hrs which is a great performance.

A special mention needs to go to supporter of the clinic Bill Taylor and his athletes Oliver Crompton and Becky Gallop. Oliver took an amazing 50 mins off his previous best marathon time while Becky ran a very impressive new personal best to stop the clock in 2.43hrs. Well done to Bill and his athletes and what a coach, he actually went out to hold their bag at the end!!!

However, “Run of the week” goes to this very deserving athlete who has had an unbelievable year breaking every personal best from 5k right up to his marathon performance where in Chicago he took a huge 8 minutes off his last marathon time in Berlin to stop the clock in 2.30hrs. Please take a bow coached athlete and V40 Shane Grace!

Amazing stuff everyone and another big weekend ahead of us all so until then…keep training!