Worksop Harriers runners secure Round Rotherham trophies

Tackled as an eight-stage relay or an epic solo 50 mile adventure of roads, trails, hills and navigation, four individuals and four teams took part for the club.

The strength of the teams meant not only was there an abundance of relay trophies to collect but the club also set the fastest time on seven of the eight stages for the day.

Matt Daly and Dom Fielding gave the Harriers mixed relay team a commanding lead.

But it was the ladies who proved to be the team saviours as Madi Spencer picked up the long ladies stage while Charlotte Jones picked up a double, running Harthill to Woodsetts, passing to Matt Chappell to put them back in touching distance of both the mixed and overall win on the run from Woodsetts to Firbeck, with Charlotte's second run up to Maltby taking the deficit down to barely 90 seconds with two stages left.

Turning the deficit into nearly a four minute lead, Tom Shaw passed the baton on to Henry Brady for the glory leg back to Manvers, knocking a total off over 20 minutes of Harriers' previous best mixed time in 6:02:28 and the course record for the current course.

There was also a Harriers 1-2 in the overall as the strength in depth allowed a strong men’s team to be fielded alongside the mixed as Adam Turner and Chris Johnson brought the men's team in to Harthill on level pegging in second place before a constant to-and-fro saw the team switch between second and third over the following stage with Kerry Saville, Adam Jonczyk and Chris Bliss all playing their part for Dom Ayton to bring the men's team in right alongside the Harries mixed team in to the Maltby check point.

Tom Mclaren kept the Harriers 1-2 goal alive up to Hooton Roberts before a fast final finishing leg saw the Harrier Men’s snatch second in a total of 6:06:53.

You’d think with all those trophies they would be done but after eight hours of racing, just a handful of minutes prevented the ladies team from making it a full house as the ladies team finished second in 8:11:36.

Rachel Silcock held off her Kimberworth counterpart to come in first before Nat Cunningham, Julie Wragg and Pamela Brooks all continued to stretch the lead.

Julie Holloway handled the stage Woodsetts to Firbeck Stage before Sarah Morgan handily stepped up last minute to fill in up to Maltby.

Gemma Hind took on stage seven before an excellent run by Sharon James saw her take over five minutes off her counterpart in a brave effort to make it 1-2-3 and give the club something to aim for next year.

The Round Rotherham is always a popular club event both for runners but also diving about seeing each other running the stages and this year for the first time the Harriers filled a fourth team as several experienced members teamed up with a few newer ones to give them their first taste of the RRR.

James Morgan and David Firth started off the Men’s second team before Chris Lawrence and Roy Turner tackled stages three and four.

Firbeck-Maltby-Hooton Roberts were all tackled by three getting their first go on the RRR in the form of Ethan Ellery, Jeff Newton and Nick Moore before Joel Kerrigan made a welcome return to finish off the relay in 7:09:16 which was still enough to see the team finish a very respectable sixth overall.

At his eighth time of completion, Kevin Saville was first solo Harrier back in 10:42:34 while Cathy Mhembere had a fine debut after many hours of preparation, followjng him in 11:44:12.

After starting separately on the 6am and 7am start times, Richard Hind and Kerry Dickinson then linked up part way through to complete together in 11:55 and 12:55.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​