11 Harriers made their way to London today for the Vitality Big Half. It’s a fairly new addition to the running calendar, with the inaugural running last year. Run by the same people who organise London Marathon (London Marathon events) it makes for a perfect half in the lead up to a Spring Marathon.
The course is fast and flat, starting just to the North of Tower Bridge. From there it descends in to a rather warm Limehouse Link Tunnel, before emerging on to Canary Wharf. Often this is the part of the London Marathon course where it’s starting to hurt, so it was nice to be running there much earlier in the race with fresher legs. After Canary Wharf we were back off past Wapping and toward Tower Bridge, a stretch certainly made more challenging by a strong headwind.Crossing Tower Bridge, we followed much of the first half of the London Marathon route in reverse, before finishing at the Cutty Sark. As with the Marathon the support was fantastic throughout and there was certainly no shortage of runners to chase.
Results wise, at the sharp end of the race, Mo managed a course record time of 61:15, with Charlotte Purdue winning the Women’s Race in 70:38. I was delighted to finish in 1:18:04, a new pb. From the Harriers, I was followed home by Ross Woods in 1:24:05, Matt Ferris in 1:25:04 and Tom Woolley in 1:25:55. Continuing a great run of form, Harriet Woolley smashed her pb by over 2 minutes, finishing in 1:26:22, and 50th in her age group. I’ve included the results below that I could find from the Harriers (apologies if I’ve missed any pbs).
Well done all.
Alex Jeffries
|
Name |
Position | Position in Age Group | Position in Gender | Total Time |
| Alexander Jeffreys | 271 | 209 | 256 | 01:18:04 |
| Ross Woods | 594 | 80 | 556 | 01:24:05 |
| Matthew Ferris | 670 | 467 | 622 | 01:25:04 |
| Tom Woolley | 737 | 515 | 681 | 01:25:55 |
| Harriet Woolley | 776 | 50 | 58 | 01:26:22 |
| Paul Hollis | 2915 | 254 | 2414 | 01:42:47 |
| Hugh Stephenson | 3416 | 1743 | 2760 | 01:45:13 |
| Stephen Wellstead | 3803 | 68 | 3016 | 01:47:13 |
| Laura May Plane | 6878 | 1396 | 2088 | 02:00:47 |
| Janet Bird | 10811 | 130 | 4569 | 02:24:24 |
| Joy Croucher | 10812 | 131 | 4570 | 02:24:25 |