Month: July 2024

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OPR at Maesteg parkrun – 7 year anniversary edition

Since the inaugural in July 2017, we’ve had 248 runners registered under OPR that have completed 3,376 runs at Maesteg parkrun (that’s 13,504 times up that hill). Our club make up nearly 20% of all finishes at Maesteg in their 272 events to date. Just to note that these figures do include some juniors and some former members. At that inaugural, we had 35 runners who were members at the time – 26 of which are still members.

Most parkruns at Maesteg

  1. Niki Puleio 133
  2. Tom Mahoney 121
  3. Aled Hughes 116
  4. Nicky Bennett 112
  5. Kris Denholm 101
  6. Toby Kearns 87
  7. Dai Kembery 96
  8. Emyr Bissmire 96
  9. Carys Bissmire 73
  10. Denise Bradley 68

Tom, Kris and Nicky have all joined the Maesteg 100 club in the past year whilst last years leader, Aled, had dropped to third now, understandably given that there’s a parkrun that starts within half a mile of his house. Carys is the only new addition to the top 10. Arwen Rees, Alison Allen, Keith Coleman, Peter Walsh and Adam Kearns have run at Maesteg on over 50 occasions.

Highest percentage of total parkruns at Maesteg (for those with over 20 runs there) 

  1. Carys Bissmire (73/78) 93.6%
  2. Emyr Bissmire (96/103) 93.2%
  3. Arwen Rees (62/67) 92.5%
  4. Louise Morris (23/26) 88.5%
  5. Tom Mahoney (121/138) 87.7%
  6. Nicky Bennett (112/131) 85.5%
  7. Scott Gray (34/40) 85.0%
  8. Jacob Tasker (36/49) 73.4%
  9. Adam Kearns (58/84) 69%
  10. Ben Batchelor (40/66) 60.6%

The major changes from last years list are Tom doing some tourism, Louise Morris adding herself to the list (the other 9 are all the same), Adam’s percentage has dropped after moving away and Ben’s due to now being a regular at Aberfields.

Maesteg first finishers

  1. Jacob Tasker 36
  2. Nicky Bennett 17
  3. Niki Puleio 14
  4. Toby Kearns 7
  5. Josh Parry 6
  6. Aled Jenkins 6
  7. Angelo Nico Doria 2
  8. Gareth Richards 2
  9. Rhys Williams 2
  10. Kyle Blackmore / Steve Holloway / Kris Denholm / James Littlewood / Gareth Battle / Tom Mahoney / Aled Hughes / Adam Kearns / Jamie Verran / Wayne Hayhurst / Harvey Puleio / Paul Teesdale

 We also had Neil Jones and Adrian Pearce as first finishers when they were members of the club meaning there’s been around 110 times that there’s been an OPR member first across the line at Maesteg.

Female first finishers

  1. Carys Cronin 12
  2. Claire Dunbar-Bowen 5
  3. Sarah Davies 2
  4. Sarah Wilkes 2
  5. Sian Price / Bethan Moor 1

 Fastest Maesteg PB’s (Male)

  1. Jacob Tasker 16:12
  2. Aled Jenkins 17:32 (before joining club)
  3. Angelo Nico Doria 17:38
  4. Nicky Bennett 17:53
  5. Josh Parry 18:27
  6. Niki Puleio 18:30
  7. Gareth Richards 18:57
  8. Rhys Williams 18:59
  9. Toby Kearns 19:07
  10. Gareth Battle 19:13

Fastest Maesteg PB’s (Female) 

  1. Sarah Wilkes 21:23
  2. Bethan Moor 23:01
  3. Claire Dunbar-Bowen 23:04
  4. Freya Allen 23:08
  5. Sarah Littlewood 23:29
  6. Carys Cronin 23:36
  7. Willow Hughes 23:52
  8. Alison Allen 24:18
  9. Kate Lee 24:37
  10. Dawn Hopkins 24:37 

Biggest OPR attendances at Maesteg 

  1. 11th September 2021 – 45 (Dai Kembery’s 250th parkrun)
  2. 24th December 2022 – 43 (multiple club milestones / Christmas theme)
  3. 3rd August 2019 – 41 (this was the morning before a Beer Mile and everyone was dressed up)

Volunteering at Maesteg parkrun

  1. Stephne Puddy 228
  2. Sian Jenkins 81
  3. Tom Mahoney 64
  4. Kris Denholm 45
  5. Nicky Bennett 38

Emma Marshall who was a member of our club until this year has the most volunteer credits at Maesteg with 249. Over the years there’s been several OPR takeovers where 20+ volunteer roles have been filled by our members.

If you haven’t been to Maesteg parkrun before, then go along sometime soon. It’s one of the most friendliest, welcoming parkruns around and you’ll be sure to see a Phoenix or two running and on the volunteer team as well.