Chairman’s Blog

Seems like we have had another busy week at Knowsley Harriers! Here is what we’ve been up to!

Committee Elections

After a week of voting by members, yesterday saw the conclusion of the election results. We had an amazing 94 of you voting for who you wanted to represent the club in the roles of Safeguarding/Welfare, Secretary & Merchandise Committee member.
A huge well done to Richie & Anja who will continue in their respective roles & it’s a massive welcome to the committee to Russ Owens who joins us as Welfare/Safeguarding Officer. I’m sure we will all wish him well in his new position. I’d also like to wish him a very happy 60th Birthday for yesterday!
I’d like to thank all the nominated members who weren’t successful this time for showing interest in the positions. It’s great that we had so much interest. I believe we have a great club & it’s only as strong as our members. With all the committee roles full, we will all be working hard to utilise our own individual strengths to ensure the club grows sustainably in the future.

KHAC Xmas Party

With the committee elections now complete, we will now start to organise the famous KHAC Xmas party! We will update you as soon as we have any more information for you. Watch this space!

Couch to 5k
We have been discussing the future of the very successful c25k programme. At present we do not have the resources to accommodate another series of graduates, therefore there was not an autumn C25k this year. I believe that the work we are going to do in the near future within the training groups will free up space in our entry group G4 to allow this to happen. I foresee there will be a C25k programme starting next year hopefully in February.

Racing
We’ve had another very busy week of racing this week!
Congratulations to all those members who took part in the following;
Steve Saunders Multi Terrain
City of Salford 10k
Prague 10k
Tough Mudder
BTR Whistle Stop Tour/Wirral Half
Ribble Trail Half Marathon
Great North Run
Well done to all the members who took part & I apologise if I’ve missed any races off!
Parkrun Tourism
Congratulations to our members who have been visiting parkrun’s further afield again this week. We had members taking part in Whitley Bay, Aldenham & Sale Water. Well done to those of you staying more local too, with completing Croxteth & Knowsley too.
Willowbrook Halewood 5k
Thank you to everyone who got involved with helping out at the Willowbrook Halewood 5k on Saturday. This weekend was an especially important race as it was part of the Merseysie Grand Prix series. Although I wasn’t here I heard it was a great success and it was great to see so many local clubs taking part too.
Congratulations to Chris Pownell who won the event, finishing in 16:02 & well done to Stephen Campbell for an excellent 3rd place, crossing the line in 16:09. We also had the first lady finisher too, with Louise Jackson leading it home for the girls in an excellent time of 19:31.
Club Records
We had a couple of notable club records broken this week, especially if you are a V65 & your name is Alan!
Alan Joyce took another V65 club record at the Bebbington Oval, completing 3000m in a fantastic time of 12:20!
Alan D’Henin improved on his V65 at record this weekend at the Wirral Half Marathon, completing the 13.1 miles in a time of 2:19:50. Well done gents!
Next Week……..
We’ve just been informed this evening that this weekend’s English Half Marathon has been cancelled. We are not sure of the exact reason of the cancellation & we hope the race organisers are able to re-schedule the event in the near future.
Good luck to our members taking part in the next Steve Saunders race tomorrow. Don’t forget the team picture!
We also have members taking part in the Yarrow River Splash 10k on Sunday. Good luck to you all & try not to get too wet!
Have a good week hoops & I’ll see you in Halewood at training!

KHAC Xmas Party!
Tickets for the KHAC Xmas party will cost £5 per member & will be available from your coach nearer the time. At the party there will be a buffet, disco, raffle, awards ceremony & the London Marathon club ballot results. We will be continuing to finalise the final arrangements over the next few weeks & we will do our very best to ensure you all have a great evening.
We did look at other venues during this week, but all the places we tried were all fully booked. At times it did feel like I was back in a nativity playing Joseph with no room at the inn! Next year we will start the ball rolling earlier & will look at other venues should we all want to try elsewhere.
I hope you are all looking forward to it & I look forward to welcoming you on the evening.

Run Leaders Course
Both myself & the committee are continuing discussions in regards to recruiting members to complete the course & help out with club training. The club is willing to fund 3 people to attend the course this year, which will benefit all training groups, including the junior sessions at the track. Moving forward, the club will be willing to fund a further 2 members to complete the course per year, should we require it.

Best Wishes
Yesterday we heard some sad news that former member Andy Bradley had suffered a brain haemorrhage & was in intensive care. My thoughts are with him & his wife Natalie at this critical time & I’m sure we all hope to see him back to full health soon.
Stephanie Charman suffered a fall at Croxteth Hall parkrun which resulted in a broken hip. She has undergone surgery today & I hope she makes a speedy recovery.

Parkrun Tourism
As usual we had a lot of members taking part in our local parkruns, including Knowsley & Croxteth. Well done to our members who travelled further afield with their barcode & completed others such as Tawd Valley & Penrith.

Racing
I’m sure there were a lot of us who was expecting to complete the English Half Marathon this morning. Nevertheless there has been many hoops in action across the north-west today. Well done to you all who completed the BTR Wirral Half social run, Hoylake 10k, Chester Triathlon & Yarrow River Splash.

Congratulations
We had some great performances from our members today. A special mention to the following;
Chris Pownell – Who won the Yarrow River Splash, beating his own course record in the process.
Danielle Scott – Was first lady over the finish line today also at the Yarrow River Splash. Congratulations also to the KHAC ladies team who came away in 1st position. Well done!
Alan Joyce – Another week, another race & it’s another club V65 record for Alan today! Alan completed the Hoylake 10k in a remarkable time of 43 minutes 36 seconds. Great stuff!
Jake & Abbie Irving (juniors) – Jake & Abbie both took part in the Chester Triathlon today. Jake won his age category & Abbie finished in 9th place for hers. Well done both!

Welcome!
I’d like to Stephanie & Jay Battersby who have become Knowlsey Harrier members this week. As established runners already, I’m sure many of you already know them and I hope we all give them a warm welcome at training. Great to have you with us!
A very warm welcome also to Simon Ellis who has returned to us from Kirkby Milers this week. I look forward to seeing you back at training & at the Monday social runs also.
We also had Rachel Kettle join us this week too. Welcome to the club!
Have a good week everyone & I’ll see you in Halewood for training.

Committee Elections
Another busy week for the committee, with nominations opening up on Sunday for the committee election process. Pleased to say that we have had a great response from our members, nominating some very capable candidates. Kelly has been working hard all week organising & collecting nominee statements for each role up for election. I am very pleased to announce, as you all probably now though that the nominees have now been revealed & voting is now open! Good luck to all the candidates & I look forward to announcing the results this time next week.

FAB 4/Kids 1 mile
This week saw the conclusion to the Fab 4 race series on Friday night. Thank you to all who have helped make this another success. We have received some great feedback from runners from other clubs which is great to hear. Following on from the new hi-viz vests we purchased for this year’s races, we have just invested in an extra first aid kit, some new re-useable race numbers & finish tokens. We will of course be using these for the Willowbrook Halewood 5k too.
A huge thank you to everyone who has volunteered so far this year. We are always on the lookout for members to get involved with volunteering. We especially need more members to help with this Saturday’s Willowbrook Halewood 5k, as many of the core team are away. Please let Kelly know if you are available to help.

Cross Country
Thanks to Chris Pownell for updating us this week on the forthcoming XC season. The Sunday league XC races kick off at Beacon Park on the 20th October. Cross country races are a great event & offer something very different to your usual races or training runs. Please show your support of these races & if you haven’t ran them before then please try & give them a go. They are free to compete in & normally have refreshments available afterwards.
Races

It was a very busy week this week for our members, taking part in many races throughout the week! This week we had the Harrock Hill, Mid Cheshire 5k, FAB 4, Cheshire Half Marathon, Run for Rhys, Grand Tour of Skiddaw, Dream Trail 10k & Golden Ball 20. Congratulations to all of you who took part representing our wonderful club!

Well done to everyone who ran at the Mid Cheshire 5k, I heard there were some great performances & many new PB’s! Thanks also to Anja for yet again updating the club championship standings. It’s starting to look very competitive!

A huge congratulations to Chris Pownell for winning the Cheshire Half Marathon today in an amazing time of 1hr 13min 40 seconds. Awesome!

Well done to one of our junior runners Lila Carragher, who ran in the Run for Rhys Charity mile event today. She finished the race in 2nd place overall, with a time of 7 mins 30 secs!

It was an amazing effort by Danielle Scott & Stephen Campbell who completed The Grand Tour of Skiddaw. The pair of them completed nearly 40 challenging miles in total & finished in an amazing 3rd place overall. Brilliant!

Parkruns
We had many of our members on tour this week, taking part in parkruns further afield, including Skipton & Blackpool. Hope you all had a great run! We had members taking part in the usual local parkruns such as Knowsley, Croxteth, Widnes & Ormskirk.

Congratulations to Andy Fearns who finished in first place at Knowsley parkrun. Well done!

Next Week
Another busy week of racing awaits our hoops next week! We have members taking part in Steve Saunders Multi-Terrain, Wavertree Mystery 5k, Halewood 5k & The Great North Run. Hope you all have a great run & don’t forget to post your pre & post run selfies on the members page! Both myself & Kelly are running The Great North Run, so I hope to see you there!

Have a good week & I’ll see you at training on Tuesday & Thursday!
#bethebestbeaharrier

Good evening hoops! Hope you are all well & have had a good week of running. It’s been an eventful last 7 days for me, firstly with getting voted in as chairman & secondly getting my head around everything that is required of the position!

So what’s been happening this week then?

Committee Elections – We’ve been in discussions about the committee elections, as at present we have one position that needs to filled and two positions that are up for renewal. Kelly has been busy this evening sorting out the nomination process for these positions, which has now gone live. Get voting!

KHAC AGM – It has been discussed previously amongst the committee & was mentioned by members this week about an AGM. This is something that we will be looking into & will hopefully organise over the next few months.

Club Training – We will continue to work with the coaches to ensure that all members are training in the most effective group for their ability. We are currently looking to recruit members who would be interested in getting involved with coaching. I’ve spoken to a few members about this & we will be getting the ball rolling once committee elections are concluded.

FAB 4 – It is our final FAB 4 race this Friday on the 30th August. Karen has been busy getting all the prizes, mementos and more importantly the sweets ready for both children & adults! We still need a few more volunteers to help, so if you can, please get in touch with Kelly. We will also be looking for help shortly for the Willowbrook Halewood 5k on the 7th September.

So what have our members been up to this week?

British Mile Relays – We had 4 teams entered into the Mile Relays this week & it was a pleasure to take part myself & witness how well all teams did. This event is growing as it becomes more established & it is an event in which I’d like the club to take part in next year. If you are interested in taking part next year please let me know. Congratulations to Alan Joyce who took part in the event & broke the club V65 record in the process. Well done!

Knowsley parkrun – The red & white army descended onto Stadt Moers Park on Saturday for our annual club championship race. It was great to see how many of us took part & it was great to see how competitive we all were! Many thanks to Anja for updating the club championship positions so soon!

Speke Hall 10k – We had a number of members, including myself, who took part in the monthly event this morning. It is a great event, organised by the National Trust & is an event that I would like us all to continue to support. Myself & Kelly ran down there from the clubhouse, completing 12 miles in total.

Congratulations – Huge congratulations this week to Tadie Abeki, who completed the Reykjavik Marathon in Iceland. Tadie finished the marathon in an impressive 3 hours 20 minutes, knocking 7 minutes off his pb!
We also had Shelley Hignett & John Cooney taking part in the West Lancs Triathlon today in Ormskirk. Well done both!
We also had a couple of our juniors producing great times at the Junior parkrun in Wavertree. Congratulations to Alex McElroy & Abigail Irving who broke the U11 male & female club record respectively. Great stuff!

Next Week – Good luck to all our members taking part in the Mid Cheshire 5k on Thursday. Remember to wear that club vest with pride!

Enjoy the rest of the Bank Holiday Weekend & I’ll see you in Halewood for training for Tuesday!