On 31st December, some people go to bed early because it’s just another day. Some people sit in to watch the countdown on tv with family or go out and party with friends. April and Will wanted to do something completely different, so they welcomed the New Year on a start line.
The Neujahrsmarathon in Zurich starts at 00:00:01 in the Schlieren sports hall, where runners must pass through after each lap. The route consists of a 6.55 mile trail loop along the river and back. The beauty of this is that runners can decide during the race if they want to drop down to a shorter distance.
After being closer to zero all week, the temperature increased to 5 on the night to make it the perfect weather conditions for running. The first lap was full of excitement as the sky was lit up for an hour with fireworks. However, due to the time of the race, there were no spectators and the course got very lonely in the later stages - it became mind over matter.
Will ran the Half marathon in 1:31:59 then provided the best support for April as she decided to run the full. She finished in 3:19:21, 4th lady and 1st in her age category.
The Ribble Valley 10k is run on an undulating course at Clitheroe and attracts top class runners from the North of England. The race was a sell-out with 1,700 runners entered but only 1,300 turned up to run on the day.
First back for Halifax Harriers was Andrew Wiggins in a PB of 38:11. He was followed by James O’Rourke 39:47. Rachel Beaumont was third F45 in 43:08 and the fast improving Angela Clarke ran a PB of 45:12.
Other runners were Marc Rocheteau 46:01, Wayne Stevens 46:06, Daniel Ryan 48:50, Sophie Baxter 48:53, John Moore 49:48.
At the 135th anniversary of the clubs traditional Christmas handicaps we saw an updated format introduced with men and woman running the same courses for the first time. Seniors members were able to choose between the two original courses now known as the long course and the short course. 24 members ran in soggy conditions making it the best turnout since 2004.
Winner of the long course was Keith Midgley who ran a time of 49.26 narrowly holding off Peter Clegg in second place who ran 35.35 and was just 9 seconds behind Keith with the handicaps in play. Third place went to Niall Smith who's posted 34.37 on his first outing at the event.
On the short course Isobelle Castelow took the honours in 32.56 with Ian Stewart second in 55.48.