Yaxley Runners have reason to celebrate after finishing 2nd in the 2021-22 Frostbite League. This is our highest ever finish position for seniors in the league’s 33 year history, finishing as leading Peterborough club.

And it wasn’t just our seniors team who were celebrating. Our Juniors finished a very impressive 4th on the day and finished in 5th place overall. It’s great to see their commitment at each race, with between 8-13 running for team Yaxley in each race this season.

The Frostbite Friendly League really brings out the very best of our club and shows what great team camaraderie we have. The League consists of 16 clubs from the Peterborough and surrounding area, competing in a series of six 5-mile cross country races from October to March. Everyone who takes part contributes to the team’s success.

At the second race of the season, we set a new record of 56 senior Yaxley Runners which shows the depth and commitment of our team.

You’ll see that this week is very similar to last week but with a little bit extra work and slightly longer sessions as we build up the endurance strength.

Session 1: Easy run 40 to 60 mins

This session is for endurance building and will be the 1st session of each week. Remember easy runs should be a gentle pace your breathing should be relaxed enough for you to be able to talk normally. It’s important not to overdo easy runs and you’ll find that 70-80% of your training will be at an easy pace. Over time your easy pace may become faster but remember to ensure you finish with plenty of energy, the effort expended should be the same even if the speed increases.

Session 2: Fartlek run 40-60 mins.

Include 6 x 2 minutes at 5k to 10k pace with 1 minute recovery jog in between each repetition. Also include a warm-up and warm-down. So the session might look like this: 20 minutes easy pace, speed session (18 minutes), finish with 20 minutes of easy pace to cool down followed by some stretches. It’s important to keep the hard sessions at the same pace and not start too fast and not have the power to complete the session. Sometimes it might take a couple of reps to settle in to a comfortable fast pace.

Session 3: Long run 50 to 75 mins

A nice easy pace run. Another endurance building run to end the week. These runs will allow your body to run faster over longer distances so don’t be tempted to run faster than an easy pace on such runs. Remember, not every run is a race, stick to the plan and you’ll get the results.

Finally, remember that your training should be enjoyable, if you need to miss a session then it’s not the end of the world and if you find you’ve missed too many you can always loop back a week or two and build again.

Our race the Folksworth 15 scheduled for January 20th 2019 has now sold out.

Thanks to the local running community for your continued support of our race, we look forward to seeing you on race day.

Another Sunday of great running for Yaxley Runners.

The race east of Wisbech has the benefit of being flat bar the crossings over the A47 but always seems to come with a fair supply of headwind (particularly just after six miles).

Conditions were good enough for all runners bar one to record a season or personal best.

Special mention to the five achieving a PB, Kayleigh Draper in 1:10:18, Duncan Jackson in 1:10:49, Gemma Toogood in 1:26:03, Raeanne Elliott in 1:34:27 and Adam Blake in 1:37:27.

Many of our team will have run today in preparation for the St Neots half in mid-November where more personal bests are expected.

Yaxley Runners are still counting up the personal bests from the recent half marathon in Peterborough.

Despite heavy rain at the start many runners enjoyed the cool and drizzly conditions during the race in which our runners amassed at least fifteen personal bests.

Many of our team have come into some great form this autumn perhaps boosted by the coached sessions run twice monthly by club coaches Tracy Farrow and Duncan Jackson.

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!