Harriers continue to be record breakers

There have been category course records for Menai Baugh and Vic Belshaw as their fantastic form continues.

Before jetting off on holiday, Menai, Elen and David Baugh had a perfect evening for the Great Orme Fell Race last Tuesday.

There were wonderful views and a large field of runners for this evening midweek series.

Menai successfully won the F60 category and in the process she broke the course category record, that had stood for six years, by a full four minutes.

She completed the course in a time of 49.24.

In front of her was Elen, running her first fell race of the year and she was able to finish strongly in 47.59.

David held off his usual age group rivals to finish in 39.29.

Wednesday evening saw the Jubilee Relay race, with a magnificent seven Harriers turning out on a very warm evening.

In a two-person race, the first team member runs from the Golden Lion, in Llangynhafal, to the top of Moel Famau.

Here, the second team member then takes the 'baton' and runs back down to the pub.

Shaun Hughes was the first Harrier to the top with a fantastic run in second position overall in 21.47.

The next Harrier to the top was Victoria Whitehead (first lady) in 29.44, closely followed by Duncan Jones (29.57).

Shaun's team-mate Tony Wood descended very swiftly, in 14.57, to put the team in third place overall.

Meanwhile, Duncan's team-mate Tony Benton was also in good form and he raced to the finish in 15.20 to put the team in 12th position.

Husband and wife team Victoria and Jon Whitehead finished 18th out of a total of 38 teams.

David Say and his team-mate were the fastest V65 team.

Duncan Roberts and Tony Benton won the unenviable prize of the fastest team with combined age of 100 years and over!

Duncan Jones raced again at the weekend as the only Denbigh Harrier in the Mynydd Myfyr hill run at Trefonen, near Oswestry.

The race managed to dodge a day of severe thunderstorms, which seemed to affect the numbers running and certainly made for a very wet course on this scenic run over four-and-a-half miles, with about 600 feet of ascent.

Duncan came home as the first O-55 in a time of 28.52.

Parkruns produced some fantastic runs for the Harriers, none more so than at Wepre.

Four Harriers turned out for the event, which attracted a field of 192. There was a personal best for Sarah Bayliss, who was round in 52nd in 27.00, while Emma Collins was 25th and the fourth lady in 24.14, just five seconds outside her personal best.

Taking more than a minute off her personal best was Ceri Belshaw, finishing in 23.24 for 17th overall and she was the second lady.

There was also a personal best for Vic Belshaw, who was third in 20.49, which is a new course record for the VM55 category.

Elsewhere, Tony Benton ran 23.59 in his first race at Dolgellau.

At Conwy, Mari Williams ran her first ever parkrun in 27.12 and Dawn Marshall finished in 30.12 as she comes back from injury.

Also running and being the most disorganised person of the week was Rob Parry.

He would have had a parkrun personal best of roughly 26.15 at Conwy, but he forgot his parkrun barcode!

Thanks go to Helen Davies, Andy Morris and Hywel Roberts for assisting with the marshalling and timekeeping duties at Conwy.

On holiday, but still racing, were David, Menai, Katy and Elen Baugh, running in Greenpoint Parkrun, in South Africa.

The best performance came from David in 20.59, while best in her category was Katy (eighth lady and 107th overall) in 23.27.

Elen finished in 24.36 and Menai ran 27.03, still finishing 211th out of a very large field of 886.