Running log

The green fields of Cork, the rugged Lakes, the flats of the Netherlands and a dozen local races featured in a bumper week of athletics.

Star performance came from Ilkley junior Georgia Malir, who won the under-20s race in the Home International Fell Championships at Keswick.

Clubmate Tom Adams was fourth in the senior men’s section as England won both events.

Hannah Oldroyd of Saltaire finished sixth lady at the Cork Marathon in 3hr 9min 51sec.

The event combined a full and half-marathon, with 2,919 runners enjoying a warm if muggy day on the emerald isle.

This was a huge personal best for Oldroyd – and not satisfied, she followed up by winning the ladies race in the hilly Marsden Ten-Miler with 71min 51sec.

Petra Bijsterveld of Ilkley Harriers joined 3,325 others in the Zwolle Half-Marathon.

“Apart from the elite, I think I was the only one wearing a foreign club shirt,” she said.

Bijsterveld described the three-lap course as a “complete fiesta with bands and music everywhere and a great crowd cheering along every part of the route”.

She just missed her own two-hour target but said: “The best moment was being lapped at about the three-mile point by the elite Kenyans with the motorcycle outriders ahead of them.

“It was such an amazing sight, seeing them run past and somehow being in the same event; sort of!”

Closer to home, 68 runners enjoyed a warm St Ives Trail Race, in aid of the Riding for the Disabled group. Although mostly dry, some youngsters lost their shoes in the mud into the first field.

Ian Holmes, of hosts Bingley Harriers, was well clear, winning in 33min 44sec.

The following evening, Holmes scaled Stoodley Pike to win the Hebden Bridge Fell Race in 45:33. Christian Holmes of Wharfedale pushed him hard to finish just 100 yards behind.

Skyrac organised the Otley Chevin Fell Race too, while Keighley & Craven held the Full Bronte Five-Miler at Haworth the next evening.

Leeds City international James Walsh won clearly in 25:56, with Queensbury’s Chris Williams gaining some scalps in fifth.