Race Report 6th March 2023

This weekend has been the busiest so far of the year ( we know we are only in March! ) so grab a brew and this week’s race report from Team Blizard follows!

 

The first race to mention was regular training partner turned duathlete supreme Lindsy James who only went and took the National Duathlon title in her age group over in Ashbourne, well done that lady!

 

Another lady making headlines was Michelle Horsewood who was running in the Golden Fleece off road trail race near Hull.  Michelle last did this event 4 years ago and has working really hard since her initial test a few months ago which results in a course pb….wait for it by over 60minutes!!!!!!

 

Moving into what was a “mad Sunday” for results the next race to mention was the super fast Trafford 10k over in Manchester where fresh back from Portugal on our warm weather training camps provided to be time well spent in the sun for Cleethorpes duo of Danny James and Mike Skelton both coming away with personal best times as did another Portugal athlete and long time supporter of the clinic Linzi Fleming.

Coached athlete Tracey Fearn took 3rd place in the ladies V50 and Leeds athlete Shane Grace had a fine run just missing his personal best a week ahead of his next England Masters representative vest.

 

 

Mentioned last week with his fine run over 10 miles once again athlete and coach team of Jordan Skelly and Bill Taylor took another huge landmark time barrier as Bill guided this talented athlete to his first sub 30mins 10k.

 

Staying with the distance of 10k but moving near home the North Lincs event that hosted both a 10k and half marathon.

Rotherham team mates Steve Marshall and Chris Griffiths used the event to lift their current fitness as Chris was another athlete racing this weekend ahead of his England call up next weekend in Chester.

Wold’s Vet athlete Tracey Gibson fresh from a week in Portugal showed a massive improvement and star of the show over the 10k distance was Lydia Race who came 3rd lady overall in the race taking over a minute off her previous best time in her first short term target after her initial lactate threshold test some 8 weeks ago!

 

The next two races we are going to report on are over the half marathon distance and at last count we had over 25 new personal best times recorded so it is impossible to name everyone but some of the more eye catching performance came initially at Scunthorpe from:

Calum Ely who smashed his pb, coached athletes Elle Warren and Ruth Muir both running big personal best times and showing they are on track for their upcoming marathons as is Kev Dunn. Several members of Clowne Road Runners smashed their personal best and our own sponsored athlete Keri Pearson who came 3rd in her age group to secure first England Master’s vest later in the year!

 

The other half marathon and final race to mention was the Retford half marathon.

This year saw the last time the event was organized by Dave Corbett after 10 years of being the race director and a special mention needs to go to Dave for putting on once again an excellent race and all he has helped the local running community over the last few years.

The race is held over an undulating loop but this did not stop the highest of quality from the team to shine through once again.

There was a host of new personal bests ( again too many to mention everyone one ) with eye catchers from coached athletes: Adrian Hopkinson, Chris Keeler, Adrian Ennis, Andrew Kitchen and Kyle Audsley while huge new personal bests from training partners Lee Varley, Tom Shaw, Shaun Carley, Jacob Clark, Shaun Johnson Andy Teasdale and Malc Stapleton.

 

 

It was double joy with sponsored athlete Lee Milburn taking the overall Men’s win ahead of his Inter-Counties appearance for Yorkshire this coming weekend and our very own “Super Vet” Jenny Blizard taking the overall ladies title at the age of 48 years old after some amazing packmaking from husband Coach Tune!

 

 

However, “Run of the week” goes to an athlete who first came to the clinic way back in 2015 when his then personal best stood at 86.08mins. He has methodically stuck to the heart rate training and comes back for 2 tests per year to make small adjustments to his training.

He was rewarded on Sunday with a brand new personal best of 75.12mins and nobody deserves the “Run of the Week” more than Matt Harvey!

Well that was a massive weekend of results and well done to everyone who raced and once again thank you all for your inspirational performances.

Until next week….keep training!