ILKLEY Harriers’ week began by welcoming a visitor ahead of their Tuesday night club runs.

Ivan Lugoloobi, the head of the Revival school and charity in Mutugga, Uganda spoke to members about how important the money raised from the recent Pete Shields Ilkley Trail Race is to their incredible ongoing efforts at the school.

The school is supported by Ilkley based charity, Give a Child a Hope (GACAH), which promotes the education of approximately 150 of the most disadvantaged children in the region. The annual trail race which took place at the end of May has donated proceeds to the charity for several years.

Over in Leeds on Wednesday evening the Hyde Park summer mile took place; a two-lap dash around Woodhouse Moor. The race took place over 13 heats with a total of 305 finishers. Geoff Howard recorded an excellent 7 minutes 24 which was the fastest MV75 time of the evening. There could have been a real battle between Michael Abrams-Cohen (5m 8.9s) and Dave Foyston (5m 12.6s) but unfortunately, they were in different heats. The two Harriers ran the 23rd and 24th quickest times of the night respectively.

Three Harriers also made the trip to the Harrogate 10K on Sunday. An undulating course with 70 percent on tarmac with the rest on good trails. Impressive performances were recorded by Adam Gerrish, David Lewis and Dave Westhead. The latter finishing third in the MV55 category.

A little further afield, Jamie Hutchinson ventured into the Peak District for a six-mile fell race attached to a beer festival and classic car show at Warslow near Buxton. It began with a great downhill start but thereafter lots of up-and-down steep-sided valleys. After an uphill finish, Hutchinson stopped the clock in 82 minutes and 54 seconds to take 65th overall and the prized first (but only) Harrier.

As usual the Harriers were well represented far and wide across Saturday morning’s 5K parkruns. Chevin Forest took the award for most represented this week with six making the short journey to the challenging course.

Nathan Edmondson continued his amazing streak of form by smashing his own Chevin course record in a time of 15.51. Darryl Stead also managed to make a PB at the same run. Meanwhile at Bramley, Forrest Hamilton finished third with an impressive time of 20 minutes exactly. At the picturesque Fountains Abbey Rob Cunningham was third in 18.05, just a second outside his PB, whilst Yasmin Cunningham managed an excellent PB of 21.44. At Bradford Lister Park, Mark Hall was fourth in a time of 18.30. In Aireville Park at Skipton, Sally Armitage was second female home in a brilliant time of 19.30 on a tough course.

Away from Yorkshire Rebecca Mon Williams was fourth female at Lyme Park Cheshire and Cameron Reilly was second finisher at Guildford in a time of 17.38 to round off an excellent morning’s running around the country’s parks.