Lots of Spartans enjoyed the club’s dinner and presentation evening at the Cromwell Hotel in Stevenage on Friday evening.
YUKO GORDON is the new overall club champion with amazing scores of 100.2% for the short distance and 102.8% for the long distance series.
ANDREW PATTERSON won the men’s open short distance with 79.0%, including winning the Hitchin 5K by 50 seconds, and the open long with 78.6%.
ASHLEY JOHNSON won the women’s race at Hitchin by a similar margin and won the club’s open short distance championship for women with 73.9%.
The age graded short championship for men went to SIMON JACKSON with 85.3%.
FIONA CLARKE won the club’s open long distance championship for women with 54.7% just ahead of HARRIET SMITH on 54.0%.
NICK GILL and VICKY ARCHER were the most improved Spartans.
The Starter of the Year was JUDY KING. The volunteer awards were Chair’s award MICHAEL O’KEEFE; Head Coach’s award JOHN HARRIS; President’s Award BRIAN WHITE; Cathy Craig Spartan of the Year CALLIE CHAPMAN.
The full list of amazing winners are noted as follows:
Female Open Short
1st Ashley Johnson
2nd Vicky Archer
3rd Kerstin Prior
Female Age Graded Short
1st Yuko Gordon
2nd Sharon Crowley
3rd Nicola Andersson
Female Open Long
1st Fiona Clarke
2nd Harriet Smith
3rd Sam Maidens
Female Age Graded Long
1st Yuko Gordon
2nd Sharon Crowley
3rd Wendy Tharani
Male Open Short
1st Andrew Patterson
2nd Nick Gill
3rd Mike Jeffs
Male Age Graded Short
1st Simon Jackson
2nd Grant Ramsay
3rd John Harris
Male Open Long
1st Andrew Patterson
2nd Simon Fraser
3rd Grant Ramsay
Male Age Graded Long
1st Simon Jackson
2nd David Harris-Cherguit
3rd Pete Smith
Overall Champion – Male – Andrew Patterson
Overall Champion – Female – Yuko Gordon
Overall Club Champion – Yuko Gordon
Most Improved Spartan – Male – Nick Gill
Most Improved Spartan – Female – Vicky Archer
The Lisa Potter Starter of the Year Award – Judy King
Chairs Award – Michael O’Keefe
Head Coaches Award – John Harris
Captains Awards – Liz Crowley and Michael O’Keefe
Presidents Award – Brian White
The Cathy Craig Spartan of the Year Award – Callie Chapman
Essex 20
NICK GILL ran 2:17:10 at Sunday’s Essex 20. He decided to race it, aiming for sub 3-hour marathon pace (6:50 per mile/4:15 per km). Managed to do exactly that and even split all the laps, and really enjoyed running with two guys – Matt and Callum – pretty much the whole way. His last 20-mile race was back in 2019 at the Hillingdon 20 when he did 2:46:03 – so a big improvement on that.
Needing to up his miles from a half marathon in preparation for the London Marathon JIM BROWN thought the Essex 20 would be the ideal opportunity. He decided to chunk it up into 5Ks and see how long he could keep them under 30 minutes. It went a lot better than expected and he finished in 3 hours 6 minutes 31 seconds, a 7 minute 20 second improvement on the fastest 20 he raced last year.
Blickling Multi Terrain Half Marathon
The Blickling multi-terrain half marathon near Aylsham in Norfolk saw CAROL PAUL come third in her age group (60 – 64) with 2:08:36. She said the weather was ideal for running but underfoot it was a bit mucky.
Milton Keyenes Festival
SOPHIE PARSONS ran in the 10k event at the Milton Keynes Festival. It was hillier than she expected but she managed to complete the course in a brilliant time of 57:43!
Parkrun
Total turnout at Stevenage parkrun went past 500 again on Saturday. This time to 518 and no doubt helped by the large number of Spartans who turned out to support Jane WADEY, Kerstin WEINER and Nicola HATHERLY for their fiftieth parkruns.
For the Consolidated Results please click the link
