Yaxley recorded a very creditable 5th place in the first Frostbite race of the season in St Neots.

Missing many regulars the team stepped up with some personal best placings achieved by many of the runners in a field of 464 at Priory Park.

First home was Steve Lomax in tenth place covering the five mile course in 29:05. Nick File and Keith McCarthy followed him home in 29th and 36th both running under 31:30.

Kayleigh Draper in 34:36 with Gina Crane just behind and a very creditable run from Wendy Freeman in 39:34 were our first three women runners. Yaxley’s other point scorers were the ultra consistent Mike Branston, club captain a very determined Hugh Burton, Keith Gillespie and the non-jet-lagged Mark Devine.

The clubs strength in depth meant there were a great many runners pushing down points scorers from other teams.

It was also great to see many debutants in the field today including Emma McGee, Kathryn Hawkswell, Abi Branston, Dave Towns and Olga Bar.

September has been a strong month for some of our busy team in races across the region and beyond.

Steph Holyoak started the ball rolling with a PB of 2:02:41 in the Kenilworth Half Marathon, quickly followed up by Kayleigh Draper in the Great North Run with 1:37:27. David Whitwell flew the flag for us in Europe completing the Berlin Marathon in 3:10:41, also a PB.

Local Parkrun‘s have been a scene of success for us too, with Dave Towns taking a new PB on the 22nd September with 24:43 following on from Duncan Jackson and Raeanne Elliott’s PBs at Rutland Water, clocking 19:53 and 25:32 respectively.

Well done to all our team, out there flying the Yaxley Runners flag.

The club held a Sports Psychology session with Holly Peck in mid September, it was a well attended and successful evening with our runners picking up tips on managing pre-race stress, overcoming anxiety and running performance worries.

All agreed it was an excellent evening.

Thanks to Karen Ives for organising the event.

The highly competitive club championship is underway. Leading the way at present in the women’s competition is Kayleigh Draper with Ros Loutit a clear second. In the men’s there is currently a tie between Steve Lomax and Keith Gillespie.

This year’s remaining races are as follows, much can and maybe will change on the leaderboards.

In July we held our annual awards day, very well attended as always despite the various competing sporting events.

The senior award winners were:

Club Runner of the Year
Hugh Burton

Club Member of the Year
Paul McCarthy
Steve Megson

Club Champions

Male
1st: Mike Morley
2nd: Darren Hillier
3rd: Hugh Burton

Female
1st: Gina Crane
2nd: Roslyn Loutit
3rd: Claire Piercy

Junior winners, age category winners and club standards winners can be found under the results tab.

Well done to all our winners!

Alongside a raft of other races and marathons Yaxley Runner’s Dean Longman has completed the Scott Series of Ultra Marathons. Dean was one of only eight runners to complete all four races in the series.

He started the year with a run from Buckinghamshire into Central London a distance of forty five miles, Dean had a quick follow up with a February fifty (yes fifty) miler from Oxford to Henley. The series moved on to Lamport, closer to home in Northants in June for a thirty five mile race. The series finished on Saturday in the intriguingly named Studley Roger, a hilly circular run again of thirty five miles in the Yorkshire Dales a race Dean reasonably described as hilly.

Most people would be happy with that with 165 miles covered. Not Dean, he now takes on the Autumn 100 (miles) in two weeks time!

This year’s mens club championship finished with a thrilling finale at the timed mile on Wednesday 24th May. It is not often that the title comes down to the last race of the championship season. This time around Steve Joy-Good led Mike Branston by 4 points coming into the final race. The race started at a furious pace with Mike Morley, Joe Wright, Mike Branston and Rob Sleight initially leading Steve Joy-Good. Rob soon fell away leaving the aforementioned four quickies to battle it out. Steve eventually caught Joe, only to see Mike Branston overtake Mike Morley on lap 3. At that point it looked as though the championship would be going to Mike Branston but last year’s champion Mike Morley kicked strongly on the last lap to finish first by a 2 second margin and dash Mike Branston’s hopes. It was a cruel blow for Branston who ran a stunning 5 minutes 14 seconds. So congratulations to Steve Joy-Good who claims his first club championship trophy by a margin of 2 points.The ladies championship was dominated by Sharron Toms, who had claimed the title several weeks ago.

What do the names Sigrunn Ekkje, Anna-Maria Seper-Krenn, Kerry Gruson and Marie Edstrom have in common?

The answer is that they were the only runners in the world to beat Yaxley Runners Barbara Johnson in her age category at last weekend’s global Wings for Life race. The race was held at twenty-five venues across the world with the U.K race in the beautiful city of Cambridge.

Barbara was competing alongside other Yaxley ladies Emily Hawke and Kate Johnstone and she was able to run 19.33km before the chasing car driven by ex-F1 driver David Coulthard caught her.

Not only was she 5th in the world she won the UK race by some distance, around 9km in front of her nearest challenger.

Barbara is used to success in local races, but now she is a national champion and the club couldn’t be more proud.

The races that will form the 2017/18 Club Championship are as listed below.

The committee has again looked to provide a variety of distances and surfaces and to support the Frostbite with two races in the championship.

June NVH 5k (June 7th at Ferry Meadows)

July Wellingborough 5 mile

Sept Swineshead 10 mile

Oct GER

Dec Hinchingbrooke Frostbite

Jan Cambs XC

Feb Bourne Frostbite

March Oakley 20;

April Timed Mile

May Langtoft 10km.

This years London Marathon saw twelve Yaxley Runners take part in very warm conditions. There were some excellent results which included PBs for David Whitwell and Kevin Peel and fast times set by first time marathoners Jason Corden, Ruth Pollard, Leah Capon and Natasha Jacob.

Three runners had doubled up in London with Mike Morley facing the heat of the coast at Brighton (3:09) plus the heat of London’s streets in 3:11. Matt Lauch and Claire Piercy took on the trans-Atlantic double competing in Boston and London with Matt struggling with injury achieving 3:34 in Boston and 3:28 in London. Claire achieved a superb sub-4 hour double with 3:57 in the USA and an even faster run in London of 3:49.

On the same day as Boston the rival race run in the Lincolnshire town saw more success for Caroline Woods who ran a speedy 3:16:59.