parkruns
June 2024 saw our members notch up 362 parkruns across 80 parkruns and a massive 47 different locations! International tourism included the Dunbar-Bowen’s at Amsterdamse Bos parkrun whilst nearer to home, a number of our regular tourists visited the new Welsh parkrun additions with Cycle Route 43 and Y Promenade parkruns.
Cosmeston Lakes parkrun was included in the club Trail Championship with a dozen visiting on the 4th Saturday of the month as well as a few others on the other weekends. Jake Tasker bagged himself a parkrun PB and new club parkrun record of 15:49 on a course that probably doesn’t feature in the top 20 fastest Welsh parkruns.
17 of our members headed on a Johnson’s tours trip to Yarborough including an overnight stay on the Friday and an unexpected long stay at the services on the way back after the bus broke down.
Milestones included Karl Johnson becoming the latest member of the 250 club having also hit that number of volunteer credits as well.
On the speedy side of things – Nicky Bennett had a first finish at Maesteg at the start of the month and Niki Puleio make it a hat-trick of first finishes in the final 3 parkruns of the month at the same venue. Aled Hughes notched up another Aberfields first finish with John Burridge just a couple of seconds behind. Deb Edwards had her first ever first female finisher at Aberfields pushed all the way by Sarah Davies.
Races
The first weekend of the month saw Dai James take on the 40 mile VOGUM from Porthcawl to Penarth. Despite his training being interrupted due to injury, a charity place at the London Marathon kick-started the mileage which helped Dai to a 4th place finish at the Pegasus event.
The Porthkerry 5 miler has been popular with our members since the two contributors to this blog ran it in 2015. It’s been used for the trail club championship in the past when we had 28 runners at the event in 2019. With the event being the same day as Rack Raid and only two days after the latest BCRL event, the fact we still had 12 runners was a pretty decent turnout. The in form Ceri Jones was our first members across the line followed by Chris Pratt and Fiona Drysdale who have both done this event multiple times. On the same day, Sian Jenkins ran the Dymock 5 miler whilst Kaye Pedler and Melinda Thomas ran the Dymock Half Marathon.
June saw the return of the popular Aberavon Run4All 5K series with 24 of our members taking on the course in almost expected breezy conditions. Wayne Hayhurst was our first runner home sneaking under 20 minutes with Chris Collin and Chris Pratt setting great times behind. With four of our members gearing up to run Welsh Castles that weekend then it was a somewhat gentler and more enjoyable run for us. Although not a fan of 5K’s, the ever smiley Melanie Thomas was our first female member across the line in 26:49 followed by Kaye and Melinda whilst there was a PB for Tammie Baker just a couple of months after having to have a couple of weeks off running.
Gareth Richards took on the Pembrokeshire Coastal 100 miler on the second weekend of the month. The course has a staggering 18,000+ feet of elevation which just to further state the enormity of the challenge, that is more elevation than the entire Welsh Castles Relay combined and crammed into half the distance. Gareth was using this as a ‘training run’ for the Dragon 100 which was due to be just 6 weeks later. Gareth picked up an injury at mile 12 but unbelievably carried on and finished the race 7th overall in 29 hours and 27 minutes. He even drove home afterwards and the next day came down to support the final few stages of Welsh Castles before finally taking a trip to A&E to have the ankle looked at which had swelled dramatically. Brave, bonkers, brilliant – you decide! What I do know is that our Male Ultra Runner of the Year for 2023 has now become the first member of the club to complete 3 one-hundred mile races.
The same day as day two of Welsh Castles saw 13 of our runners at the Swansea Half Marathon. Jake Tasker broke his own club record with a 1:08:11 for a fifth place finish overall. Angelo ‘Nico’ Doria also ran an unbelievably quick PB of 1:14:40. Katie Plimmer was our first lady with an outstanding PB of 1:42:15. There were also a PB for the in form Ceri Jones. There were also 5 members running the Swansea 5 miler which has now been included as another option, with all 5 getting PB’s – well done to Ria Ross, Caryn Hicksm Kate Teasdale, Julie Greenman and Claire Miles.
26 members took on the second race of the Swansea Bay / Paul Popham 5K series. Whilst we had a nice tailwind for the first half, the wind was a big factor on the way back. Wayne Hayhurst and Rhodri Thomas finished just a couple of seconds apart as they had done in the first race of the series. Claire DB was our first female finisher. Despite the blustery conditions there was a PB for John Batchelor.
A few members attended the Pride Cymru 5K and I ended up running straight from the finish of this to do the Cardiff Summer Series 3 miler which was starting a mile and a half away having picked up my number beforehand to save time!
The second SSAFA 5k of the series saw 7 members take on the fast flat course in Cardiff on one of the hottest days of the year so far. The event was also doubling up at the South Wales Region 5K Championship with recently appointed South Wales Regional Athletics Chair, our very own Chris Pratt, in attendance. Despite the hot conditions, Jake Tasker ran 15:10 to finish 4th against a highly competitive field and Niki Puleio ran a 17:19 PB.
A catch up on some events from last month – apologies for these pretty huge ommissions. Firstly, Carl Walsh and Dan Ridley ran the Hillary Everest Marathon – yes, that is a marathon on Mount Everest! It includes several days of hiking to base camp before doing the marathon. The race starts at 17,000 feet – more than 6 times the height of Snowdonia (Yr Wyddfa). Unsurprisingly, it took 9 hours to complete. What an incredible achievement.
The other big ommission was Tom Mahoney and Angelo Nico Doria running the Leeds Marathon. Nico ran 2:46 for one of the fastest ever marathon times by a club member and finished in 9th place. Tom ran an excellent 3:27 on his marathon debut!
Rack Raid
This was the 4th year the club had competed in the Rack Raid Relays. A 100 mile, 13 stage relay around Abergavenny, Monmouthshire and Chepstow. Bethan Moor kicked us off for the second year in a row, beating her time from the previous year. Jamie Verran was next up making his Rack Raid debut whilst Dylan Panting took on stage 3 having done stage 11 the year before. Sian Price came in as a late replacement and had been part of our first ever Rack Raid team back in 2019. Katie Plimmer made her 3rd appearance at Rack Raid taking on stage 5 this year. Gareth Richards took on the second longest leg despite having a 100 miler just 5 days later. Sarah Davies also made her third appearance. Jake Tasker is our only runner to take on the same stage 3 times – the 13.1 hilly half marathon stage. In the past two years he’s won that stage but narrowly missed out on the course record. This year he did it – a course record by over 2 minutes plus of course the win. Connor Panting and Carys Bissmire made their Rack Raid debuts on stages 9 and 10 respectively whilst it was 3rd Rack Raid for Niki Puleio. The long day of running ended with debut Rack Raid runs for Arwen Rees and Emyr Bissmire. We ended up with our best overall time in the 4 years we’ve been part of the event.
A big thanks to Sarah who helped me with some of the logistics and organising and to Jamie Verran who was nominated team captain for the day.
Welsh Castles
I documented our journey to being part of the Welsh Castles and previewed the stage in the blog linked HERE
So going onto the actual weekend – 12 of our Welsh Castles runners headed up to North Wales on the Friday along with nominated captain for the weekend Dai Kembo and a couple of support crew. The minibus was adorned with logos of some very generous last minute sponsors as well as of course the OPR logo. A sensible night for our runners for night one with some long, and in some cases, hilly miles to come the next day.
Bethan Moor created some club history by becoming our first female runner at Welsh Castles and also had the honour of being on the first stage for a second weekend in a row having done the same at Rack Raid. Rhodri Thomas became the first OPR member to run Welsh Castles twice for the club as he took on the second stage. Tom Mahoney continued his fantastic form on the first mountain stage of the weekend before Ben Batchelor made it a second year in a row at Castles. Jason Griffiths is a Castles veteran having run several times before joining the club and took on stage 5 for the first time. Martin Beard took on stage 6 before Nicky Bennett ran the second mountain stage of the weekend. Jonathan Matthews was arguably our newest runner to be taking on Castles before Sarah Davies became only our second female Castles runner. Scott Gray finished off day one with the longest stage of the weekend (13.1 miles).
Onto Day 2 and a pre 5am wake up for our runners who had made their way up to North Wales the day before and were now heading to Newtown to start the second day with first stage starting at 7am. Niki Puleio was tasked with the early morning mountain stage before Josh Parry set off before 8am on his stage. Luke Davis was the first of our runners who was travelling from home for his leg which also would have meant a very early start to travel the best part of 2 hours to his stage. Aled Jenkins took on the infamous Drovers mountain stage which at 1,617 feet of elevation in less than 11 miles is the hilliest stage of all. Aled was our highest finisher of the weekend finishing 9th on his stage out of 60 runners. Willow Hughes became our youngest Welsh Castles runner. Then it was my turn on the final mountain stage from Brecon. Our final seven runners were all making their Welsh Castles debuts. Next up was Sian Price followed by Jamie Verran and Ashley Howells. On the final leg was Jo Jenkins. After a team of 20 men last year, our ladies started and finished the relay for this year. Several other OPR members as well as most of the runners from the weekend were at the end to cheer Jo in and celebrate what was a fantastic weekend for the club. Despite having to cobble a team together in the 10 days before the weekend, we actually ended up being only 34 minutes off the total time for the previous year which over 200 miles is a pretty small difference. Well done to everyone involved and a huge thank you again to Dawn, Dai, Nicky and Niki who did a tremendous amount of work and organising to make it happen with such a tight turnaround.
Chair’s Runners of the Month
June was a big month of running with great endeavour on display right across the club. All abilities racking up races and numbers at training as the warmer weather arrived. Spirits were high as positivity flowed.
Always difficult to choose when so many are making a mark, but choose I must.
Two stories again with a similar reason for them raising an eyebrow.
My first choice has been with us for some time and I’ve been a aware of her running for a number of years before that. Memories of running on Porthcawl seafront as a child hailing from a family where running is prolific. She joined us a few years ago and immediately set her stall out with times. One to watch. Enjoyment and effort all apparent whenever she runs. Whether you run to perform or not – the smiles and enjoyment of the sport are an important attribute and they can be seen here in abundance. Not afraid to represent, and it is her efforts in our Welsh Castles team that piqued interest in June. Not only representing but also our youngest ever Castles team member, and with increasingly impressive BCRL performances too, we’re excited to see what the future has in store! I am delighted to announce my first Chair’s Runner of the Month as Willow Hughes. Huge well done Willow – keep up the good work.
My second choice shone during our recent endeavours navigating the north to south traverse of the country. Some stages present more of a challenge than others with few more so than the Drover’s. 16km with 500m of climbing with much of that climb coming near the end. We knew of the prowess of those within our midst pushing performance but sometimes it takes a specific event for it to be laid bare. Flying and floating were words bandied around by those in attendance at the event in seeing my next choice ascend the climb to the finish line. Smiling and full of energy, he positioned significantly in the rankings of the day and it lifted the spirits of the team battling in the later stages. A big statement and a warm welcome as a fairly recent newcomer to the Phoenix family. Delighted to announce my second Chair’s Runner of the Month for June as Aled Jenkins. Really looking forward to what comes next!