SIX Spa Striders made the long trip to Newcastle on Sunday to take part in the popular Great North Run.
The event took runners on a half marathon distance from Newcastle upon Tyne to South Shields and Stuart Lee celebrated his 11th go at the Great North Run by finishing as the fastest Strider home in 1:41.03.
Also joining the thousands of runners were Greg Harris who finished shortly behind in 1:42.52, Victoria Haworth (1:53.35), David Lithgow (2:02.14), Claire Westrope (2:04.21) and Helen Pugh (2:18:33).
Spa Striders travelled near and far over the weekend, competing in a variety of running and triathlon races and locally there were nine runners at the Stratford Big 10km event.
Simon Parsons continued his recent fine form with a PB and 26th position overall after finishing in a time of 39.32 and Alistair Geddes was close behind in 40.14.
Emily Field-Lucas led the Spa Striders ladies home in 43.30, while marathon training Lorraine Parsons ran strongly over the distance to finish in 49.22. Richard Sharman (45.05), James Warren (50.27), Simon Kaye (52.02), Brian Warren (55.59), Stephen Quantick 59.35) also competed.
Striders also travelled to France for the Medoc Marathon (Chris Jones) and to Sweden for the Stockholm half-marathon (Lucy Marcovitch).
In triathlon, Luke Hillson completed the Rutland Water-based Vitruvian triathlon in 6:21.02 in what was his debut performance at half-ironman distance.
At the Raceways Coventry Sprint triathlon, Rob Nash (1:22.51) was first the Strider across the line to take third sport in his age category, with Clare Hinton (1:37.21) also taking third in her age category on her debut triathlon. Other Striders taking part included Hartwig Busch (1:26.05), Doug Rattray (1:28.06), Chris McKeown (1:30.48).
