Spring Handicap, 8th May 2017

On an unseasonably cold night with a bitter wind blowing on the Town Moor, 46 runners and some frozen marshals made for another successful and enjoyable Claremont Handicap.

We were joined by a number of guests, including 5 from Active Newcastle, and it was one of the guests, Daveen Fiddes, who was first home. Daveen, saying it was the fastest that she has ever run, finished our hilly course some 5 minutes quicker than her parkrun time to fool the handicapper and win by some margin. Technically the first Claremonter home was Cath Robson but as she had accompanied Daveen rather than running off her own handicap, she didn’t really count!

The trophy therefore went to Anthony Liddle, with an impressive run to finish 45 seconds ahead of Robyn Wynn. Another guest, Tracey MacFarlane split the two and Robyn just held off the fast finishing Jakob Jerabek. The runners then came in thick and fast with just 2 minutes between 4th and 41st.

Speediest on the night was Jonathan Gilroy in 17:50 (after telling me that he wouldn’t be very fast following his weekend excursions!). Jakob was second quickest in an equally impressive 18:07 with Dan Edwards next in 20:14. Fastest lady was Hannah Mainprize in 20:57, followed by Robyn Wynn in 21:04 and Sarah Kerr in 22:24.

Robyn’s impressive run meant that she quite convincingly won the Handicap Shield ahead of the other finalists, Sarah Bowen and Dave Kear. She will have a chance to defend her title and become the first person to win it twice as she has also qualified for the Summer final, where she will be competing against Francesco Carrer, Mungai Wairia and Howard MacLennan.

Full results can be found here.

The photos below are courtesy of Dave Manners: