Seven Harriers and their supporters made the trip down the A46 to Stratford upon Avon to compete in the Rotary Shakespeare Marathon and five returned PB times. In the men’s race Alan Percival 3:41:44 (PB), Trevor Hope 5:17:01 and Mark Woolerton 5:54:34 (PB) found the hot weather hard going with Mark especially suffering badly over the latter stages but still managing to reduce his PB by over 30 minutes.
In the women’s race Katie Osborne 4:01:35 (PB), Zoe Waistell 4.56.38 (PB), Judith Brand 5:06:07 (PB) and Caroline Scrimshaw 5:12:57. Katie caught all the supporters by surprise as she was only entered for the Half Marathon run at the same time but had decided to do the full distance after a good recovery from her race three weeks previous in the Paris Marathon, although she improved the Paris time by 12 minutes she was adament that the Stratford race would be her second and last 26 miler.
Zoe and Judith running together for the first half of the race setting an over ambitious pace with Judith especially finding the last 6-8 miles very difficult and painfull, Zoe handling the conditions far better and improved her PB by 3 minutes. Honarary Harrier Jane Needham now living in Northamptonshire smashed her PB with a time of 3:47:54 which was agonisingly 2 minutes off the age qualifying time for automatic entry to the 2010 VLM. A great day, excellant organisation, brilliant weather (for the spectators!!!) and other than Katie nobody heard to say ‘never again’ Run at same time as the full marathon Darren Wilson competed in the shorter 13.1 mile half marathon finished in 21st position out of over 1800 competitors in a time 1:22:30 another PB.
