Race Report 17th April 2023

Apr 19, 2023

Blizard Race Report

This weekend saw one of the busiest and most successful one’s the clinic has enjoyed EVER!

With so many races to cover over a multitude of distances, take a deep breath, make yourself a brew and read on…….

Kicking off this weekend of action was the National road relay championships over at Sutton Park in Birmingham where teams from all over the UK competed in the Men’s 12 stage and Women’s 6 stage relay championships.

If you haven’t ever been to watch the national road relay championships then consider it as it is athletics at its purest.

There were several olympians on view on Saturday running for their club trying to win the team championships.

There were sterling runs from Steve Marshall and Chris Griffiths for Rotherham men’s team while our very own Jenny Blizard helped her club ladies team Rotherham to a very credible 12th position nationally and a special mention needs to go to Nigel Brooks for his tireless efforts putting teams together.

Moving into what was our very own “Super Sunday” and the next races to mention were the Vale of York 5/10 mile events.

Coached athlete Shane Grace made light work in the 5 mile event coming 2nd place overall while teammate and supporter of the clinic Lee Whitely used the race as his final preparation ahead of this weekend's London marathon.

Doubling the distance to the 10 mile event saw another marathon bound athlete in Rome Doisneau come home a very solid 6th place overall as his training is aimed towards the Leeds marathon while recent lactate tested athlete Matty Bell ran another new personal best to add to his growing collection of personal best times.

Next up was the ever popular Lincoln 10k road race which despite having what was a ridiculously dangerous start for a field so big, it still didn’t stop some fantastic performances.

With so many of the team racing it is impossible to mention everyone but some of the more eye-catching performances came from Tom Shaw running a new personal best and Chris Griffiths turning out only 24 hours after racing in Birmingham!

Ladies Jenny Blizard and Tracey Fearn took their respective age group win with Jenny claiming 6th place overall.

Top runs and new personal bests were also achieved by Chris Inman,Gav Edley, Faith Edlington-Mole,Callum Ely Ely and Mike Skelton from Cleethorpes,Paul Drake and Andrew Ansell, James Fisher and our very own coach Tune!

The famous Boston marathon always takes place today ( Monday ) yet the Lincolnshire,Boston version of the marathon proved a happy hunting ground for another coached athlete in Chris Keeler who totally smashed his previous marathon best time on this much flatter course than the USA version!

The final race to report from was the ever popular and well supported Manchester marathon which saw a huge number of athletes from the clinic race over the classic distance.

This really was a tough one to call with so many of you running perfect races and achieving some incredible performances.

In no particular order there was outstanding performances from Clowne trio of Giles/Matt and Alison all performing so well, ever consistent Vivianne Fraser smashed her personal best time while first timers Aaron Lowery, Stuart Gough ,Angela Lally and Adrian Hopkinson all ran perfect races.

Sterling runs came from Simon Kendall, Steve Mosey, Matt Hamer , Mark Lawton and joining the sub 3 club for the very first time Seth Kirby!

However, “Run of the week” for the first time is a 3 way joint title from 3 very special runs.

Matt Harvey very who is a regular to our marathon sessions over the years fully deserved his break through run and taking him under 2.40hrs for the first time while coached athlete Ruth Muir who for those who know her leads a very busy life via family and work totally smashed it to run 3.09hrs in her first ever road marathon.

The final person to mention is our very own Lee Milburn who bounced back from his disappointment of the Yorkshire marathon back in October to finish an incredible 11th place overall in a fantastic time of 2.28hrs!