Career first for Leamington runner Sue Harrison - The Leamington Observer

Career first for Leamington runner Sue Harrison

Leamington Editorial 6th Jul, 2015 Updated: 28th Oct, 2016   0

SUE Harrison completed a career first by beating all other male and female comptitors and winning the Caldecotte Lake 30-mile road race at Milton Keynes on Saturday.

Harrison was asked to prove her fitness by British Athletics after being selected for the Great Britain squad for the World 100km Road Running Championships in September in Holland.

And the Leamington Cycling and Athletics Club star did just that by beating the rest of the field in Saturday’s race, which consisted of eight laps of 3.66 miles around Caldecotte Lake, in a winning time of 3:44.25.

Her time broke the exisiting ladies course record set in 2013 by two minutes and 24 seconds




Despite a temperature of around 24 degrees and a strong breeze which was in the runners’ faces for almost half of the lap course, Harrison quickly settled into a strong rhythm at the head of the field.

Aiming at running between 7.25 and 7.30 minutes for each mile, Harrison was pleased to find that the variation between her fastest and slowest lap of the race was only 70 seconds.


Running with Harrison for the first two laps was Darren White (East Hull Harriers), but he could not keep up with Harrison’s relentless pace and eventually finished over eight minutes behind.

Speaking after her win, she said: “It was difficult at times to maintain my pace because families were enjoying the park and there were cyclists, children on scooters and dog walkers to contend with and twice I had to divert off the course to avoid families of ducks.

“However they did provide welcome relief and meant that I had to keep my concentration levels high.”

After celebrating her win with a well earned Pizza, Harrison had no time to rest as she took part in an 18-mile run on Sunday morning which was accomplished at a slightly slower pace.

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