Tales from the trails, this weekend – with news from Ultra North, Stanhope 10k and Parkrun… with a bit of extra from our Wednesday night recce of the Captain Callcott Canter route.

We begin on Saturday morning with Kieran Ridley and Harriet Wilson taking on the Ultra North 55 event, with Deborah Swann, Sarah Reay and Vicky Parker taking on Ultra North 25.

Kieran waving to his fans, there…

Finishing his first ever ultra in 6 hours was our man Kieran and we’ve borrowed some of his post-race words/thoughts

“it was a great run, I really enjoyed it, apologies for my potty mouth when I seen some of you, excitement, adrenaline and sugar takes over (Gatesheed kid innit) Choppaz was a bit of blur and ankle break alley wasn’t as horrific as I remember it to be when I was training. Huge thanks to Natasha for running with me from Lintzford down to the viaduct, I defs would have finished later had she not. Absolute hero’s welcome at the end. Thanks everyone, great support. If anyone fancies a bash at it next year, give it a whirl, it was a good taster. Ps. In the words of Adele ‘if you can roll a a ball down it, walk up it! Solid advice!”

Harriet also smashed out the course over 7 hours and was also quick to pay tribute to the amount of support she received from DVRC members along the way…

This, from Laura Peacock has to be the best of the bunch – how you can support your team members whilst also doing your washing – tremendous multitasking win!

Meanwhile, at the Ultra North 25, there was a PB for Sarah, who took the course down in 3 hours, alongside Deborah – with the two ladies being joined by Vicky to complete the course all under 3.5 hours! Great work from all 3!

Saturday proved to be immensely testing – with almost all of the weathers possible across the event, really testing out one’s mettle…

Also on Saturday we had the slightly shorter distance with our favourite 5k at ParkRuns – which included an international flavour once again, with Bex and Chris Hewitson jumping on a Friday evening flight to Amsterdam to collect the coveted Z ParkRun at Zuiderpark, in The Hague – another ticked off the Alphabeteer challenge.

On the day, Bex finished first female with a new ParkRun PB – under the golden sub-20 mark (19:37).

Elsewhere, there was a bit of tourism with the Owens (Theresa and Terry) hitting the course at Fulham Palace, whilst closer to home, we also had members running at Gateshead, Chopwell Wood, Prudhoe Riverside and Town Moor. With Kirsty Robson, Megan Williams, Sally Ann Greenwell and Lindsey Dover all volunteered at Chopwell.

Another Grand Prix event rolled around on Sunday, with the rearranged Greener Miles Stanhope 10k event – that was due to take place earlier in the year but was scuppered by horrendous weather, on the original date.

This time around, we had a huge turnout for the club – Glen Cooper lead us home with an amazing 5th place overall finished!

Natasha Powell was our first lady home, and second lady overall! Another stunning result from Natasha, as she continues to produce the goods!

We’ll update the post once the full results are published – and we’ll also publish and update to the club Grand Prix scores!

To end this update, we’ll circle back to Wednesday evening, where a whole load of club members took to the course of our upcoming Captain Callcott Canter race, in memory of our dearly departed club captain, Andrew, to recce the route and finish off with a beer raised his honour.