ILKLEY Harriers runners continue to take what opportunities they can to race in a small selection of socially-distanced events, seeing both ends of the distance spectrum ticked off - from a 5km gallop in York to a 50km ultra in the Dales.

Three Harriers travelled to the former, a monthly series organised by Evensplits which consists of five 1km laps of the York Sport Village cycle track.

The flat profile makes it a slightly more attractive course than the Leeds version of the same series (not yet resumed), which runs at the Brownlee Centre and has a slight uphill section.

The York event was the first race back since Covid-19 halted the series in March and the organisers did everything they could to make it as safe as possible.

That included separating runners into three waves, each with eight socially-distanced runners setting off at 10-second intervals.

All three Harriers had a target time - and all were successful.

Mike Abrams-Cohen was aiming to go under 18 minutes for the first time and did so with relative ease, clocking 17:45.

The 19-minute barrier was the goal for Sally Armitage, and this went down to the wire as she crossed the line in 18:59!

And Rhys Jones, fresh from his superb top-10 placing in his ITU Paratriathlon World Cup debut at Alhandra earlier in the month, was looking for another sub-20 time which he achieved thanks to a 19:34.

Meanwhile, in the Yorkshire Dales, Jann Smith was busy tackling the stamina-sapping Pen-Y-Ghent Ultra.

The 50km race featured over 4,000 feet of climbing - the route setting off from Hawes, going uphill to Ten End, across to Horton in Ribblesdale before the climb of Pen-Y-Ghent and a return back on the Pennine Way.

This year it was done in a time trial format, in groups of six and five minutes apart, with face masks worn for the first and last two miles.

The women's course record was shattered by both Smith (five hours, 44 minutes and 22 seconds) and Samantha Willis (5:40:56), with the latter taking the win.

Both of them made the top 10 of the overall standings, which were headed by Stephen Kirk in 4:52:42, the only person to break five hours.

The results were as follows:York 5k series - (1 15:07 Rob Scott,Richmond & Zetland), 38 17:45 Michael Abrams-Cohen, 66 18:59 Sally Armitage, 78 19:34 Rhys Jones.