IN the past week members of Harwich Runners have competed both locally and as far away as Australia.

Harry Young travelled to Ingatestone for their five-mile race.

He finished 106th in the field of 153 with a time of 43 minutes and 26 seconds.

Robert Reason was the only club competitor at the Colchester 15-mile race.

The event was original scheduled for earlier in the year but had to be postponed because of bad weather.

Reason was second out of the 98 runners in 1h 28m 18s, well clear of the third-place finisher.

Steve Cooper was at Bury St Edmunds for the Eastern Masters Inter Area Cross Country Challenge and completed the 8k race in 29m 5s.

On Saturday, the club entered two teams in the Essex County Cross Country Relay Championship, held at Gosfield.

Each runner had to run 5k and the teams performed well.

The team consisting of Madeline and Trevor Lewis and Claire and Jules Lawrence finished five places ahead of the other club team of Emma Mackillop, Kris Dalby, Samie Franklin and Marcus Turner.

At the Harwich Parkrun, Claudine Benstead was first lady finisher once again, this time in 20m 40s. Nicola Challis was third lady in 23m 43s and there were new personal bests (PBs) for Kim Pretty, 23m 16s, and Sam Edwards, 25m 59s.

Members also ran at a number of other Parkruns.

Lee Allen was at Gorleston, 19m 39s, Mark Higgs ran at Telford, 20m 33s and Scott Brian ran 22m 24s at the Clacton event.

Twelve members took a day trip to Jersey for the Parkrun event there.

A large field of 384 people finished and the first finisher from Harwich was Graeme Knott, in sixth place (18m 27s).

The next Harwich Runner to finish was Simon Day, 15th in 19m 53s.

Kate Hodgkiss was third lady finisher in 21m 17s and first female from the club.

For Sarah Roxby Clarke, Jersey was the 27th different Parkrun location she has run at and it was here that she set her new best time of 28m 21s.

On the other side of the world, Dennis Warner is near completion of his epic 5,000 kilometre lone cycle ride across Australia.

After completing over 4,500k, he stopped off at the Roma Parkrun on Saturday.

Despite tired legs, he finished fourth in 25m 6s.

His journey finishes next Saturday at the Sandgate Parkrun, on the East coast.

He is then entered in an eight-stage mountain bike race which will take most of the last two weeks of his time in Australia before returning to the UK and probably the Harwich Parkrun.