Weekly News. Sunday 28th February.

VIRTUAL RACING

Judging by everyone's Strava activities/photos it's been a great weekend for getting out running. With the sun shining and the promised return of racing in the next month or so the future seems rosy. In the meantime there is plenty of virtual racing to get your teeth into:

1/ 'Forest Mile' Virtual Challenge.
Cherry's on-going virtual challenge continues next week with the 5k distance. It's based on the Mallards Pike parkrun. Please see Cherry's blog post for more details.

2/ BMAF - British Masters Athletic Federation - One Mile Virtual Challenge.
Quite a few Harriers have entered this event. More info here:
BMAF Road Running Championships 2021

There's still 6 days to enter and then submit a time. Entry, leaderboard etc are on the 'open track' website here: Open Track

RUNNER OF THE WEEK

This week Julian Smith is in the hot-seat. Julian is the co-event Director of the Severn Bridge parkrun.

Why did you start running? My wife and I decided to take up a healthier lifestyle after my brother passed away in 2016
What was your first ever race? Newport 10k 2018
How long have you been running? Started running in 2017 with first parkrun in November 2017
Why did you join Chepstow Harriers? Jonathon Carter made me. Well done Jon! (Ed)
What runs/events do you like best? Road Running 10k and just starting to enjoy off road events to
What’s a typical training week for you? Include any cross-training (other activity that impacts on running) you may do. I run 5 days a week with a Harriers based training session on a Tuesday. Monday is normally over the bridge and back and weekends try to get some longer mileage in
What ways does running impact on your life? Gets me out of doing the housework. ( 😁 Ed).
What do you feel is your best running achievement? I have a few – Running 5k in sub 20, running Half Marathon in sub 1:35. 2020 was a good year for me reaping the benefits of the training form 2019
Is there anybody or anything that has particularly inspired you in your running? Senior members of the Harriers and what times they are achieving is motivational to keep training and improving
Do you have any short term/long term goals in running? I would like to run a Marathon at some point in the near future
Got any advice for others? Just get out there and have a go – improvements can be made by anyone with some hard work and focus on the right sessions. Use the advice of the coaching team to help structure training sessions for what they need. Overall though make sure you enjoy it.