parkruns
This month saw 267 parkrun finishes across 66 parkruns with 46 different locations. International tourism included Satera James at Main Beach, Australia, Kris Denholm at Amager Standpark in Denmark and Dawn Hopkins at Salento in Italy. Johnson’s Tours visited Mount Edgcumbe, Somerdale Pavillion and Killerton parkruns.
Forest of Dean parkrun was this months Trail Championship venue with 11 members visiting over 3 different Saturdays. Porthcawl was the venue for this months Team competition which resulted in some bigger numbers including 29 members there on the final weekend.
Dawn Hopkins became the 14th member to reach 250 parkruns and was joined by 35 other members at Porthcawl for the celebration. A week later, Saul Harris became the 15th member going under the radar with a last minute appearance at Aberfields.
At the speedy end Rhodri Thomas picked up his first ever first position token at Aberfields and doubled up with his first sub 20 at that venue. New member Paul Teesdale was first finisher at Maesteg whilst we had a number of female first finishers during the month with Bethan Moor at both Cosmeston and Maesteg, Carys was also female first finisher at Maesteg whilst Arwen Rees was
Races
The summer 5K continued with 26 members at the second Aberavon Run4All event. Very windy conditions meant that times suffered slightly although huge kudos to John Batchelor who still got a PB. Jo and I both got our best 5K times for well over a year (two years in Jo’s case) at the Newport Pagnell Carnival 5K in Milton Keynes where Jo ran 24:37 and I ran 21:05.
The final Swansea Bay (Paul Popham) 5K of the series took place with 25 members in attendance. Gareth Richards ran 19:00 as our first finisher whilst Claire DB was our first female in 23:41. Laura Worrall ran a PB. OPR were also announced as the club with the biggest participation across the series although we are still waiting on what the ‘prize’ for that was.
At the final SSAFA race of the series, Jake Tasker won against some high calibre competition with an unbelievable club record of 14:53 knocking 8 seconds off his previous club record / personal best. Angelo ‘Nico’ Doria ran an incredible 16:10 whilst Toby Kearns ran just under 19 minutes. Next up was Willow Hughes and Katie Plimmer in PB times of 21:05 and 21:15 whilst I was hanging onto their coattails just one second back. David Sheard made his first SSAFA appearance of this series with a 25:25.
Just a few days later, Jake smashed his own 10K club record / personal best with 30:57 at Magor 10K in another race victory. There were also amazing times from Niki Puleio (36:35), a sub 40 finish for John Burridge, and great times for Gareth Richards, Jason Griffiths and Keith Coleman as our 50+ runners ran times that most people half their age would be pleased with.
We had an amazing turnout of 67 runners for the Porthcawl 10K with brilliant performances throughout the field. Nicky Bennett was our first runner back in 34:53. Niki Puleio continued his good form, following up a recent 5K PB with a 10K PB of 36:07. Scott Gray also bagged himself a PB of 38:38. New member Paul Teesdale is quickly catching up with his older brother Mark’s times with a 40:54. Teri Leigh Roche, Caryn Hicks, Kate Teasdale and Laura all also bagged themselves PB’s.
A random free evening resulted in me going to the Rose Inn 4 miler where I finished towards the back in a time of 31:05. The last time I ran there was part of a team relay event in 2016 where I ended up running for two different teams due to someone dropping out last minute.
There was drama at the Dragon Ultra with our only 100 mile entrant this year, Gareth Richards, having to pull out at Mumbles due an ongoing ankle issue that occurred in his previous 100 miler just 7 weeks earlier. In the 50 mile event, Dai James was going strong for the first 10 miles or so in and in the top 3/5 before a knee issue meant having to take it easier for the remainder of the event. Well done to Leanne Parsons who completed her first 50 miler having previously completed the Brecon to Cardiff 44 miler last year. We also had Carl Walsh completing the newly introduced 30 miler.
The latest fixture of the BCRL saw our very own fixture at the World Famous Planka as Aled likes to refer to it. We had 96 runners (including our two tail runners) which is a record number for us at our own event and our 8th highest attendance at any fixture in our almost 12 year history.
A huge thank you to the race committee and more than 30 members who volunteered in some capacity on the evening.
In the team standings it was another win for Bridgend with OPR in second but we pushed them hard in both the men and women’s top 10 and our huge attendance helped our scoring further with every finisher making a difference.