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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.

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. 11^th September 2021 – 45 (Dai Kembery’s 250th parkrun)
2. 24^th December 2022 – 43 (multiple club milestones / Christmas theme)
3. 3^rd 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.

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! 

This weekend includes a number of huge events with Welsh Castles Relay, Man vs Horse, Pembrokeshire 100, Swansea Half and a few parkruns besides.

Welsh Castles Relay

20 of our runners will take on the 209 mile Welsh Castles Relay which runs from Caernarfon Castle to Cardiff starting at 10am on Saturday morning, with the final leg starting from Caerphilly at 250pm on Sunday.

A brief history of our efforts to participate in Castles. It would have been first suggested 10 years ago when the club had less than 100 members. Over the years, we tried several times to see if there was enough members willing to commit to the weekend and the captaincy team met on multiple years to try and progress but we never managed to actually get to a stage of being confident that we had enough runners to apply for a place. In 2019, we managed to get ourselves a place in Rack Raid – essentially a 1 day version of Welsh Castles which was a big stepping stone towards having some experience in a big multi stage event and some of the logistics that entails. Due to the couple of years of no events covid, we felt that we probably needed another year of just being involved in Rack Raid (2022) before an all out attempt at getting a place in Welsh Castles. Last year, it finally happened. A huge effort by Dawn Hopkins, Nicky Bennett, Dai Kembo and several others resulted in our first actual application being accepted. We were finally in and I think for most of us, we assumed that meant the club would be doing Castles year after year from then on – but it doesn’t quite work like that…

Onto 2024 and 20 runners put their names forward and the application was put in only for us to discover, we weren’t selected. Bitterly disappointed we asked for more information and were told that with a reduction in the number of teams this year, we’d narrowly missed out. Fast forward a few weeks and with less than 2 weeks to go before the weekend of Welsh Castles, Dawn gets a call that a team have had to drop out and we were literally the next club in line. Cue dozens of WhatsApp’s, Facebook Messenger messages and phone calls and somehow over the next 24 hours we somehow managed to scramble enough runners together to accept the place. Of course, this was just the start and a huge thank you to Dawn, Nicky, Niki Puleio and Dai Kembo again who then had to sort out a minibus, accommodation and along with myself, try and slot runners into stages that were suitable for ability and dependent on which day(s) they were available. We got to version 4 and needed one of our reserves to come which was only finalised about 24 hours before the names had to be submitted (Friday 7th June). In the middle of all the chaos, we still managed a very successful day at Rack Raid last weekend!

So onto this years event.

Stage 1: Bethan Moor will start us off with a 9.1 mile stage with 449 feet of elevation at 10am tomorrow. Interesting it’ll mean Bethan has been our opening runner in both Rack Raid and Welsh Castles this year. With our team consisting of 20 male runners in 2023, Bethan will become the first female member to run at Welsh Castles for the club.

Stage 2: Rhodri Thomas returns to Welsh Castles having run leg 19 in our first outing last year. His stage is 10.7 miles with 371 feet of elevation.

Stage 3: Tom Mahoney makes his Welsh Castles debut and is taking on the first of 6 ‘mountain stages’ that are included in the 20 overall stages throughout the weekend. Tom is in great form having got PB’s at both Half and more recently in the full marathon distance. His stage is 12.3 miles with 945 feet of elevation.

Stage 4: Ben Batchelor returns for a second year having run stage 9 last year. His stage is 9.5 miles with 489 feet of elevation.

Stage 5: Jason Griffiths is by far the most experienced of our Welsh Castle runners having run this event multiple times before joining our club and was also on hand to lend some of his experience running stage 8 last year for the club. This years stage is 9.6 miles with 459 feet of elevation.

Stage 6: Martin Beard makes his Welsh Castles debut on the 10.7 mile stage from Barmouth with 696 feet of elevation.

Stage 7: Nicky Bennett is taking on the second mountain stage from Dolgellau with the 10.1 mile route having 1,473 feet of elevation. Nicky ran the first mountain stage (3) in last years event.

Stage 8: Jon Matthews is the newest member of our club running tomorrow having only joined a few months ago. He takes on the 10.8 mile stage with 1,107 feet of elevation.

Stage 9: Sarah Davies is our second lady to take on Castles with the 8.5 mile stage with 325 feet of elevation. Sarah also ran at Rack Raid last weekend and has recently got a 5K PB (which was also a new club age category record) at SSAFA.

Stage 10: Scott Gray finishes off day 1 with the 3rd mountain stage and longest stage of the entire weekend with a 13.1 mile run with 1,112 feet of elevation.

Stage 11: Niki Puleio has taken one for the team by taking the first stage of day 2 which is not only a mountain stage, but starts at 7am and will mean getting up possibly before 5am to get ready and travel the 40 minutes to get there from our last minute accommodation. His route is 10.5 miles with 1,240 feet of elevation. Niki also ran last year when he ran stage 10. Niki also ran Rack Raid last weekend.

Stage 12: Josh Parry returns to Castles having done stage 4 last year. This years stage is 11.2 miles with 505 feet of elevation.

Stage 13: Luke Davis is the only member who will be repeating the same stage he did last year with a 10.6 mile run including 518 feet of elevation.

Stage 14: Aled Jenkins takes on the biggest mountain stage of the lot in terms of elevation with 1,617 feet of climbing over 10.8 miles. Aled recently ran 2:30 at London Marathon to take the club record. This will be his Welsh Castles debut.

Stage 15: Willow Hughes will be the 3rd female OPR member to run Welsh Castles and takes on the second longest stage at 12.8 miles with 495 feet of elevation.

Stage 16: Gareth Jenkins (me!) will take on the final mountain stage of the weekend. Up until version 4 of the team sheet, I was running the final stage (20) but some last minute changes have resulted in me going from possibly the best stage in terms of the distance/elevation/finish support, to one that literally goes uphill constantly for the final 6 miles of the 12.5 miles in total with most of the 1,181 feet of climbing in that second half. I’m not complaining though – running at Welsh Castles has been high up on the list of things I’ve wanted to do ever since I joined the club nearly 12 years ago. I can’t believe it’s finally going to happen!

Stage 17: Sian Price only rejoined the club a month or so ago after a couple of years out and in that time she’s been on the receiving end of desperate messages from me twice already. Sian stepped in as a last minute replacement for Rack Raid and has now done the same again for Welsh Castles. She will be the 4th OPR lady to take on a Welsh Castles stage with a 8.7 mile stage with 407 feet of elevation. There was a bit of panic a few days ago when we accidently had the cut off time at 8 and a half minute miles for her stage but we can confirm all stages have a cut off of 9 and a half minutes per mile.

Stage 18: Jamie Verran makes his Welsh Castles debut having run at Rack Raid for us last weekend. He takes on a 9.1 mile stage with 404 feet of elevation. Jamie has been on form at the shorter distances with two PB’s at 10K in the last couple of months and a 5K PB at SSAFA as well as several first finishes at various parkruns.

Stage 19: Ashley Howells is another making his Welsh Castles debut taking on the 7.7 mile stage with 279 feet of elevation. Ashley recently ran a 50K Ultra in West Wales and regularly runs with the Running Punks as well as OPR.

Stage 20: Jo Jenkins will be the 5th female member of OPR to take on Welsh Castles. In the last minute reshuffle, Jo was our final runner to added and obviously if there’s someone I had to give up the final stage for, then I’m very happy it’s her. Jo is used to the multi-stage events having represented the club three times at Rack Raid. Jo takes on the 9.9 mile final stage from Caerphilly Castle to Cardiff with 207 feet of elevation.

All the best to our Welsh Castles runners this weekend.

Man vs Horse

If you’re not familiar with this event then yes, it is what the name suggests – a race against horses. Not only that, it’s 22-24 miles across a tough multi-terrain course. Last year was only the fourth occasion in 42 years where a runner finished first ahead of the horses. A handful of members have participated in this in previous years including current members, Wayne Hayhurst and Fiona Drysdale. This year, Chris Pratt takes on the event for the first time.

Pembrokeshire 100 miler

At midday on Friday 7th June, Gareth Richards set off on his third 100 mile event having completed the Dragon 100 the last two years in a row. Gareth is actually using the event as a ‘warm up’ and is going to ‘take it easy’ ahead of the Dragon 100 this year (in just 6 weeks time) where he is hoping to dip under the 24 hour barrier having got close in both years so far. The event is run by Run Walk Crawl who a lot of you reading this will be familiar with from the Vale events and they also organise the Dragon 50/100 milers. Nick Harris and former member Jamie Vanstone became the first members of the club to ever complete a 100 miler when they ran together in just under 32 hours on the inaugural Pembrokeshire 100 in 2017. The event didn’t return after covid and this is first year that it’s been back on since 2019.

Swansea Half Marathon and 5 miler

This year, Swansea Half have added a 5 mile option with multiple members taking on one of the distances. Unfortunately I don’t have a start list for this one but I believe Kris Denholm is one of the official pacers and all eyes with be on Jake Tasker who has finished 4th at Swansea Half on two occasions and it’s where his current 1:09 club record PB was set. Katie Plimmer is likely to lead the charge for our female members with the likes of Willow, Bethan and Sian at Castles.

With a packed race calendar over the summer months then good luck to those who may be running at event not mentioned above. Although it may be a reduced attendance due to these events, we will no doubt still have big numbers at parkrun and this weekend, Kris Denholm becomes only the 4th member of the club to reach 400 parkruns.

All the best to all our runners.

parkruns

This month saw our members complete 304 parkruns across 72 parkruns and 46 different locations. International tourism included Johnson’s tours going for the Scandanavian special day event (on a Thursday) where 8 of our members visited Ekebergsleetta parkrun before the Sarah D and Dawn went off to do Gdansk two days later whilst the rest did Zamek w Malborku.

Helen Griffiths celebrated her 50th parkrun (over 10 years after her first) whilst Lee Dunbar-Bowen celebrated his 50th parkrun later in the month. Gwyneth Steddy, Emyr Bissmire, Wayne Hayhurst and Darija Keenor all ran their 100th parkruns.

On the speedy side of things, John Burridge was first finisher at Aberfields despite recovering from knee issue, Jamie Verran set a new club record for most first finishes at the most different parkrun venues with first finishes at Trelai and Aberfields. Carys and Alison picked up female first finishes at Maesteg during the month, whilst Bethan Moor was first female at Cosmeston Lakes parkrun.

Races

May saw the start of the 5K season with several big events during the month. We started off with the Cardiff Race for Victory which has become the biggest 5K race in Wales over the past few years. This year saw a record 33 members take on the speedy course around Whitchurch which has led to several PB’s for club members over the past couple of years. New member, Dan Richards was our first runner across the line in 16:40, catapulting him straight into number 4 on the clubs all time fastest 5K runners. We had 8 runners come in under the 20 minute mark in a field that saw hundreds of runners achieve the same feat. Carys Bissmire was our first female in 22:29 on the same course she set her PB a year earlier. She was closely followed by Claire DB.

A few days later was the first of the Swansea Bay (Paul Popham) 5K series with usually calm conditions on the coastal out and back helping several runners achieve PB’s including Rhodri Thomas with his first sub 19, finishing in 18:57. Rhys Bradley ran a superb 22:49 PB, Megan Rand bagged a PB of 27:20, Teri Leigh Roche came in with a 28:00, and our 2022 Runners Runner Laura Worrall smashed her PB with a 38:36.

We also had the first SSAFA 5K event of the year with a highly competitive field where half of the runners finished in sub 20! Like the Race for Victory 5K and Swansea Bay series, the SSAFA course definitely lends itself to PB attempt and this race saw some incredible performances. Of our 13 runners on the night, Jake Tasker was keeping himself fresh for some upcoming events but still ran 16:45 for our first finisher across the line. Jamie Verran popped up with 18:21 PB and Niki Puleio helped pace Scott Gray to a 18:41 PB. Katie Plimmer continued her outstanding improvements at all distances with a 21:19 PB and out of nowhere, Sarah Davies smashed her PB by over 30 seconds, joining just a handful of female runners in the club with a sub 23 time, finishing in 22:54.

The big 10K event of the month was the Cardiff Bay 10K which attracted 46 of our members. Dan Richards led us home in 35:08 which puts him 3^rd on our all time list at that distance. Jamie Verran ran his first sub 40 with a 39:44 just a few weeks after running a 40:19 at Newport 10K and just a week after being one of only two members at Caerphilly 10K along with Fiona Drysdale. Another member in form is Ceri Jones who ran a sub 45 PB followed by PB’s for three relatively new members, Jonathan Matthews, Ben McCrum and Gemma Richards. Lee Dunbar-Bowen, James Marsh, John Batchelor, Megan Buckle, Caryn Hicks and Ria Ross complete the PB celebrations for this event. For those that didn’t fancy a flat 10K, we had three members at the Gorseinon 10K on the same day with Wayne Hayhurst, Rya Davie and Melinda Thomas taking on the bumpy course down West.

At the longer distances, Marina Konstantinova ran the Riga Marathon in 4:57, Alexis Barrett completed her first ultra along with her husband Paul at the HOWUM Pegasus 30 miler whilst Ashley Howells also completed his first ultra with the St Iltyds Ultra in West Wales the venue for his.

Kevin Raymond continued his hilly training with the Ras y Gader Fell Race and the 23 mile Preseli Beast. We had a further 6 runners in the 11 mile Preseli Beast Bach where Jake Tasker claimed another course record with solid performances from our trail championship regulars Katie Plimmer, Claire DB, David Sheard, Melanie Thomas and Lee DB.

Jake’s performances at recent trail championship events earned him a call up to represent Wales, creating another piece of history for the club as our first ‘international’ athlete. Jake was invited to run in France at the 26k Trail de Guerledan where he finished 3^rd overall and as first Welsh athlete and helped Wales win the team prize.

BCRL

The second fixture of this years Bridgend League took us to Rest Bay where we had 87 members for the Friday evening race. Despite saying he was taking it easy ahead of a course record attempt at Rack Raid less than 48 hours later, Jake Tasker still comfortable won the race in 16:25 making it a hat trick of wins at the event. Strong performances from our top 10 men and women as well as the big overall participation meant we scored really well but did come second to Bridgend again who have more or less doubled their numbers participating so far this year.

Chair’s Runners of the Month

We all remember the first time we did something significant.  When it comes to running, each milestone achieved is a cause for personal celebration.  For some, the pursuit of a new discipline or new distance are the things that provide that much sought uplift.

In May, two firsts caught my eye.  Not necessarily because of the distance.  While admirable, it’s about the journey – because quite often the process is the worthy achievement with the final event being the “victory lap” as you’ll often hear it called.

These two stories are very different but, in some ways, similar.  A focused preparation that saw the hours go in.  Whether other events were targets along the way – the miles were being committed.  For one, it was multi-discipline training that strengthened the legs and built the endurance.  For the other it was the steadily building miles.  Every time I looked up there was another run completed.  Looking leaner and getting stronger.  Each building to their end goal.  The goals were very similar.  First ultra marathon.   A journey into the unknown.  What happens to the legs when marathon distance is completed and the extra miles add additional wearyness to the legs.  When every bit of energy is spent and additional fuelling is needed to sustain forward movement.  Forward they did move.  With guts to stand on the start line and determination to reach the finish.  Phoenix Spirit flowing through their veins as their goals were realised having trusted in the process that let them dare to dream.  

My Chair’s runners of the month for May, running different events but each longer than a marathon, are Alexis Barrett and Ashley Howells!  Well done both! I have loved following the respective journeys and I’m full of pride for your amazing achievements!! Such huge achievements and I’m excited to see what the next challenges are going to be!  

parkruns

April saw our members notch up 310 parkrun finishes across 71 parkruns with a massive 52 different parkrun locations. International tourism included Kris Denholm at Krakow parkrun, and Karl Johnson at Zuiderpark whilst social member Mark Teesdale ran at Millennium parkrun in Canada. April 20th saw a number club tourism record set with our members running at 21 different parkruns!

The second weekend of April saw our Zero to Hero’s graduate at Aberfields parkrun with 53 members turning out for the occasion. Well done to all our new Z2H graduates.

On the speedy side of parkrun, Jacob Tasker picked up another couple of first finishes at Aberfields and Sharpham Estate plus Niki Puleio had a first place finish at Maesteg. There were several first female finishes with Carys at Maesteg, Marina at Maesteg, Claire DB at Brynaman and Sarah D at Aberfields.

Races

A much lower turnout than previous years for the Vale series of races although we did have 5 runners in the 10 miler, Angharad Hinam, Nick and Linda Harris in the 18.5 miler, and Carl Walsh in the 32 mile ultra.

The Samtampa Memorial 7K in Porthcawl saw 11 of our members take on the course with Jamie Verran finishing 3rd overall. Later in the month, 12 members took on the Bluebell Blunder 7K where I was the first finisher for the club followed by Claire DB.

Just one 10K in the month which saw 15 of our members take on the Newport course. Jamie Verran was our first runner across the line in a PB of 40:19. There were also PB’s for John Batchelor whilst it was a very good day for some of our past and present Zero to Hero runners with Ria Ross, Caryn Hicks, Lisa Ryan, Julie Greenman, Claire Miles and Kate Teasdale all running 10K PB’s.

There were a few Half Marathons in the month with Tom Mahoney (1:29) and James Marsh (2:04) picking up PB’s at the London Landmarks Half with Darija Keenor and Vickie Blake also running the event. Jake Tasker bagged himself another win at the Red Kite Challenge Half with Katie Plimmer also completing the challenging multi-terrain, hilly course. We had 12 runners at the Newport Half Marathon that is now held alongside the 10K and Marathon. Emyr Bissmire was our first runner across the line in 1:33 whilst there were PB’s for Carys Bissmire (1:45), Willow Hughes (1:48), Ben McCrum (1:48), Arwen Rees (1:54) and Ben Batchelor (2:03).

The major events of April were the marathons, starting off with 15 members at the London Marathon. Aled Jenkins – an unfamiliar name to most as he’s only recently signed up for the club sent shockwaves through the club as he broke the stranglehold Jacob has off all the club records running 2:30:40! Niki Puleio set off with Aled Hughes to try and help him break 3 hours after two near misses in the past 12 months or so. Again, Aled was on track but the time just slipped away towards the end. Niki finished in 3:00 with Aled in 3:03 and Paul Smith who has previously broken the 3 hour mark finishing in 3:08. Despite a very injury interrupted build up, Dai James finished in a very respectable 3:37 whilst Martin Beard bagged himself a PB of 3:46. Adam Kearns, Sarah Davies, Wayne Hayhurst, Nick Harris, Gail Newell and Nige Rees were next up before Jo Rowling completing her first marathon and finally our returning member, Sian Tossell.

There was drama at the Newport Marathon where a few days after the race, it was found that the course was 276m too long so times were adjusted which are the ones I’m including here. Gareth Richards was our first runner across the line despite having been out of action with a chest infection in the weeks leading up to the race – his time of 3:11 was just outside his PB set last year. Toby Kearns, Neil Ridley, Danny Ridley and Robert Green were next up before PB’s for Nicola Veasey, Kaye Pedler and Rya Davies who all came in together in the adjusted time of 4:48.

Before both these events, Heather Morgan followed up her presentation night award winning marathon from last year by completing the Brighton Marathon in 5:40.

BCRL is back

The Bridgend County Running League returned with it’s first fixture for the 2024 season at Sandy Bowl to an incredible response. Every club turned up with huge numbers but we still managed to top the lot with an unbelievable 101 members crossing the finish line. It’s only the fourth time we have had over 100 members finish at one event. There was a surprise in store with the winner not being an Ogmore Phoenix runner for the first time since 2019, however, our speedy men and women did their bit and alongside the huge turnout, we finished second overall to a rejuvenated Bridgend AC who appear to be out for revenge after our team wins in the past two years. It was a particularly fantastic performance by our top 10 girls who outscored Bridgend and Porthcawl for the first time since the new scoring system has been in place.

Chair’s Runners of the month

As I wrote last month, we’re now entering the Spring marathon season and it feels appropriate to honour members who have completed the distance with an admirable story to tell.

My first choice has had an incredibly arduous journey to the event of note.  A serious injury put pay to running of any kind.  In fact, even walking was serious limited.  It was a long journey back – a journey that is as much a mental battle as it is physical.  It’s a slow process – patience is a virtue here – and there are always challenges along the way.   It takes a strong will to stay determined through that process and one way to try and ensure that the end goal is reached – is to set one.  Sometimes it needs to be big.  Big enough that just getting sorted won’t fulfil it – look beyond the good outcome and target something that will be a challenge beyond full recovery.  Nothing like setting a challenge – and this was going to be a marathon – her second!  Recovery was slow – and long – but it was progressive.  Healing took place and she rolled with the setbacks and continued to strengthen until it was possible to move properly again and run.  Steadily building – exercising caution not to overdo it – and working towards the goal.  All of the commitment paid off and we were wowed by the achievement when it came with a certainty that was never doubted after the incredible dedication shown to the challenge.  Brighton marathon – achievement unlocked!  Again, I’m in awe.  People are amazing and none more-so than my first choice Chair’s Runner of the Month who I’m delighted to share is Heather Morgan.  Well done Heather – amazing job that will always stand as an example of how it should be done!

My second choice is a stalwart.  Here since the start.  There have been periods of sporadic commitment to running goals throughout that time.   Sometimes distance – sometimes speed. Focus wavered.  But it’s been noticed that, for some time, the focus has been consistent.  Times have steadily been coming down.  Goals were being set and training was dedicated towards them.  That sensible approach that’s needed to make big differences in the outcome.  It’s difficult when you’ve run for many years to start making improvements once again. Times tend to plateau and the effort required to bring times down again can often be hampered by the inevitable impact of aging.  When it does – hard work has been at the forefront of the process and it is worthy of accolade.  Inspired by this renewed focus at short and long distance, and in particular the marathon, I am delighted to award my Chair’s male runner of the month to Aled Hughes.  Keep that focus up Aled!  Looking forward to seeing where it leads. 

A five Saturday parkrun month meant some huge figures with 328 finishes across 79 parkrun events with an incredible 51 different parkrun venues. We almost completed the parkrun alphabet between us in March with the only letter missing not being one you would expect like a Q, U, Y or Z – we didn’t do a D parkrun which you would assume would be relatively common. Anyway – International tourism included Fiona Drysdale at Krakow in Poland, Jay and Toni Howells at Zalew Wrzesinski parkrun also in Poland, and Darija Keenor at Inch Beach in Ireland. Whilst it’s part of parkrun UK, we also had Gwyneth Steddy and Angharad Rees at Omagh parkrun in Northern Ireland.

It seemed like a month for alphabet chasing with Dawn and Sarah travelling to Upton House, the Harris family visiting Quakers Walk, whilst Jo and I went to Yarborough Leisure Centre parkrun which completed my UK alphabet.

For the first time in many months, we didn’t have any first overall finishers at parkrun but Carys Bissmire was first lady at Maesteg with Arwen Rees second lady in the same event. Dawn Wright ran her 100th parkrun with Aberfields being the venue whilst Ceri Jones ran his 50th parkrun at Porthcawl.

Races

Ten members took on the Rhayader Round the Lakes 30K which many have described as a ‘mini Snowdon’ with it being a hilly road race with stunning scenery. Although this year, it probably trumped even Snowdonia for it’s extreme weather with runners having to battle though driving wind and snow. The post race photos with ice literally formed on runners hair and faces were quite something! Of course, not even this can stop Jake Tasker taking the win by a significant margin after a much closer battle in the same race last year. I don’t always list every runner but I’ll make an exception this time – well done to Danny Ridley. Chris Richards, Ken Salvatore, Paul Barrett, Melanie Thomas, Simon Poole, Katie Plimmer, Alexis Barrett and Kaye Pedler. There was also a 10K in no less brutal conditions so well done to Kris Denholm, Rosie Salvatore, Melinda Thomas, Sian Jenkins, Julie Ransom and Shawn Cullen who were probably all very relieved they’d gone for the 10K option!

There were lots of races with just one or two members taking part with Leanne Parsons running the Margam 10K, Kris Denholm running the Teifi 10 miler, Danny Ridley running the Saturn Running Half Marathon, Melanie Thomas and Simon Poole ran the Brechfa Trail Half Marathon, Neil Ridley, Kris Denholm and Angharad Hinam ran the the Merthyr Half Marathon and Wayne Hayhurst and Gail Newell ran the Great Welsh Half.

There were several other Half Marathons in the month with Jacob having to settle for second at the Forest of Dean Spring Half Marathon where he ran a phenomenal 1:10:40 on the undulating multi-terrain course. It was also a British Trail Championship race with some very high level competition. We had 6 other members at the event with Katie Plimmer our first female across the line. Martin Beard, Claire DB and Lee DB ran at the Lisbon Half Marathon which is part of the Super Six Half Marathon Series series alongside Cardiff Half Marathon. After the dismal wet weather in Wales for what seems like the past 4-5 months, it would have been a bit of a shock to the system for our 3 runners as temperatures were well into the mid to high 20’s for the event. On the final day of the month, 5 of our members ran at the Cardiff Taff Trail Half.

The Marathons ran in March were some of the highlights of the month. Aled Hughes had be super-focussed on training for the LA Marathon but unfortunately things didn’t quite go to plan despite still finishing in a time of 3:24:56. Carl Walsh achieved another world-class milestone as he completed the Antarctica Marathon putting him amongst a very select group of runners to have run a marathon on all seven continents. Emma Loyns took on the super-challenging Ras Dewi Sant Marathon for the 4th time. At the Great Welsh Marathon. our young superstar Angelo ‘Nico’ Doria ran 02:56:59 on his debut marathon becoming only the 6th member in the history of the club to run under sub 3 hours and is by far the youngest to do so at just 19 years old. Gareth Richards ran a PB of 3:10:30 to beat an outstanding over 50’s club record that Kevin Raymond had held for almost 9 years having run 3:18:46 at the same event (but a different course) in 2015. It’s mind blowing that the recent changes to Good For Age times for London Marathon mean that neither Nico or Gareth made the qualifying time for their respective age groups despite these phenomenal performances. Wayne Randall followed up his Half Marathon PB at Llanelli just a few weeks earlier with a Marathon PB of 3:55:20, whilst Emma Loyns completed her first marathon as a pacer coming in just under her allocated 4:30.

Finally, there was the final fixture of the West Glam XC league at Penllergar Woods. Unfortunately the fixture clashed with a couple of other events and more than 20 of our female OPR members on a weekend away so we ended up with just 4 men and 3 ladies for this one. Fortunately, it appears that unless there’s a restructure, then both the men and women have done enough to stay in their respective divisions for next year.

Presentation Night

Another fantastic presentation night was held at Tondu Cricket Club with the social committee stepping up yet again to provide us with a great venue, decorations, food and party atmosphere. Our Chair, Chris Pratt, put together an incredible presentation with video’s and photo’s documenting our year and video’s and captions for every winner on the night. I helped present some of the unbelievable stats for the year whilst Sian Jenkins was on hand to interview the winners as they came up to collect their awards which were presented by Alexis Barrett. Club milestone t-shirts were handed out by Fiona which meant that over 40 members went away with either an award and / or a milestone t-shirt on the night.

Onto the winners

Runner’s Runner – Jake Tasker

Runner’s Runner 2nd place – Jamie Verran

Runner’s Runner 3rd place – Tammie Baker

Outstanding achievement – Carl Walsh

Spirit of the Phoenix – Jay Rhys Howells

Chairman’s award – Gareth Jenkins

Club Runner – Jake Tasker

Female Trail Champion – Jade Bazylkiewicz

Female trail championship 2nd place – Sarah Davies

Female trail championship joint 3rd place – Katie Plimmer

Female trail championship joint 3rd place – Claire Dunbar-Bowen

Male Trail Champion – Jake Tasker

Male Trail Championship 2nd place – David Sheard

Male Trail Championship 3rd place – Lee Dunbar-Bowen

Club champion – Jayne Bissmire

Club championship 2nd place – Ria Ross

Club championship 3rd place – Siân Jenkins

Female Ultra Marathon – Emma Loyns

Female Ultra Marathon – Melanie Thomas

Male Ultra Marathon – Gareth Richards

Female Marathon – Heather Morgan

Male Marathon – Jake Tasker

Super Veteran Female – Denise Bradley

Super Veteran Male – Keith Coleman

Veteran Female – Claire Dunbar-Bowen

Veteran Male – Aled Hughes

Senior Female – Carys Bissmire

Senior Male – Jake Tasker

Most Improved Female – Katie Plimmer

Most improved Male – Toni Howells

Female Newcomer – Bethan Moor

Male Newcomer – Danny Ridley

Male Newcomer – Angelo Nico Doria

Zero to Hero – Caryn Hicks

Zero to Hero – Ria Ross

It was our biggest year yet in terms of the number of awards handed out. Well done to Jake Tasker on securing the top prize of Runners Runner, becoming only the second member in the clubs history to win it twice – the other being Nick Harris. Jake’s haul of 5 awards takes him above Denise Bradley for most in the history of the club with 11 in total (in just 3 years). Gareth Richards and Claire Dunbar-Bowen who both won on the night are on 8 each. However, it was great to see 28 different winners on the night including several winning their first awards with the club.

Chair’s Runners of the Month

March sees Spring arrive and it ebbs closer to the traditional Spring marathon season which often dictates the routine of our longer distance runners.  But we acknowledge we have runners with targets which vary wildly in distance and so the season, for many, sees a plethora of events appear on the scene to target.  

One constant all year is parkrun – it’s there for us all on a Saturday morning at 9am, come rain or shine, and it fulfils such a huge variety of slots in our routine.  For some it provides the mechanism for a timed 5k – to provide that benchmark in their journey – and for many achieving a first finish provides a huge lift.

My first choice is someone who has had her fair share of the top spot. Running is so much about the journey, but you’ll also here me extol the power of running to lift the mind and pipping everyone to the finish can have that outcome.  I’m full of admiration for runners who work hard through their journey while building and nurturing a family.  When that is the case our time is consumed and quite often commitment to running is heavily impacted.  In the month of collecting the Senior Female award for an amazing year in 2023, she collected another couple of first finishes and continues to stay competetive and committed.  I’m delighted to award my first Chair’s Runner of the Month for March to Carys Bissmire.  Keep pushing and inspiring us Carys – while devoting yourself to your wonderful family!

My second choice this month is a bounce-back story.  We have had several members whose journey has been hampered by illness.  Often life is put on hold through treatment and recuperation.  A recent initiative that runs alongside parkrun seizes on the fact that active recovery can help to strengthen the path to better physical and mental wellbeing.  When allowed to do so, my next choice showed similar resolve to his last appearance in these accolades, several years ago.  Dedication to doing it right.  Doing it as prescribed.  But doing it.  Not letting it slip.  When the body allowed, doing what he could.  Steadily building through the stages back to full activity.  Recognising the worth and then embracing good practice to make full use of it.  Positivity exuding and inspiring us as the journey back gathers momentum.  So good to see.  Totally inspired I am delighted to award my second Chair’s Runner of the Month for March to Shawn Cullen.  Well done Shawn – keep up the good work!

parkruns

February saw our members complete 261 parkruns across 59 parkruns with 32 different locations. Overseas tourism included Jo and I at Caferella parkrun in Rome, Denise Bradley at Bushy parkrun in Dublin, Helen Griffiths at Navan parkrun in Ireland, and Emma and Rob Loyns at Jamiaca Pond parkrun in Boston, USA. Emma was also running her 100th parkrun whilst in Boston.

Other highlights in the month include Johnson’s tours taking a mini-bus load of Phoenix runners to Oaklands parkrun. Claire Goldsworthy ran her first tourism parkrun after her first 243 were all at Porthcawl with University Parks the venue. There were overall first finishes in the month for Jake Tasker at Aberfields and Jamie Verran at Cosmeston Lakes whilst Carys Bissmire was first lady at Maesteg.

Races

There were a couple of XC races with Gareth Battle and myself the only OPR members running at the Gwent League Margam fixture which was probably one of the muddiest XC events I’ve ever done. We did have a better attendance just a couple of miles down the road from Margam Park at Kenfig Nature Reserve where there was a lot less mud but a lot more sand for the West Glam fixture which saw 15 members running. Jake Tasker took the victory whilst Jade B was our first lady across the line.

Jake took another win at the Reverse 10 where he broke his own club record for 10 miles with a staggering 52:45. Claire DB ran a PB of 1:21:22 whilst Lee DB made it a great day for the Dunbar-Bowen’s with a PB of 1:36:36. Katie Plimmer finished in 1:33:33.

The clubs trail championship fixture for February were the Caerphilly Trail races which depending on your fondness of mud could either be described as glorious or horrendous – it was extremely muddy and slippery underfoot by all accounts. In the 5K, Sarah Davies was 3rd overall and 1st lady in a time of 40:59 which probably goes some way to showing just how tough conditions were. Bev Sheard also completed the 5K. Six other members had the pleasure of doing double that distance through the mud in the 10K with Jade our first lady followed closely by Claire Dunbar-Bowen.

Five members took on a much more flatter, road 10K with now long-standing Llanelli Half Marathon adding the distance to their event. Wayne Hayhurst was our first finisher followed by Phill and Steph Iveson. Jon Batchelor and Helen Griffiths completed our runners in the 10K. In the Half Marathon, Gareth Richards ran a speedy 1:26 whilst Connor Panting ran a 1:28:01 PB. Unbelievably, Toby Kearns ran exactly the same time as his PB from Cardiff Half last year with a 1:29:14. Wayne Randall ran a 1:39 PB – Wayne’s HM PB was over 2 hours 30 minutes when he first joined the club. Kris Denholm paced 2 hours at the event.

On the same day, Jo and I were in Naples for the Napoli Half Marathon where I ran 1:50 on what was my 40th birthday and Jo ran 2:16. In a third different country on the same day, Chris Richards was running the Bath Two Tunnels Half Marathon which he completed in 1:53.

Carl Walsh was our only runner in the Brecon to Cardiff ‘Extreme’ edition. The organisers, Run-Walk-Crawl decided to mark the anniversary of the traditional 44 miler which normally follows the Taff Trail from Brecon to Cardiff (or actually Nantgarw) with a special ‘extreme’ alternative version. This alternative was nearer to the original distance of 50 miles but featured a route that included numerous off road climbs through the mountains. Carl finished in just over 13 hours.

Chair’s Runners of the Month

My first choice has shown great prowess ever since becoming a member.  Setting high standards for herself, she strives to achieve great things – and always does!  Sometimes self-exterted pressure can weigh heavy and our own expectations of great things in the outcome can mean that even when we achieve, we don’t always celebrate it.  Others look on and are inspired – but that doesn’t mean that the outcome will inspire us ourselves.  Success can be measured in so many ways and embracing every different way heightens our enjoyment of running.  I’ve seen that steadily enter the mindset of my first choice.  Embracing when it goes well – as it does so often – but also learning to accept that when it doesn’t – the process and the sheer enjoyment of being out there is enough to warm the heart and lift the soul.  While accolades are collected – and were obtained in February – I want to celebrate as much the mindset shift to welcome whatever the race may bring and use it to smile at the experience as much as the outcome.  As I write this, serious injury is preventing running – but sheer determination ensures that she keeps showing up – sharing her determination to keep moving – keeping fit and building strength – working sensibly to recover well and be ready to take on the world again.  When she does she will do it with flair – but also embracing every ounce of enjoyment out of the experience – and in doing so continue to inspire us all with it.  I am very proud to announce my first choice for February 2024 Chair’s Runner of the Month as Jade Bazylciewicz.  Keep inspiring us with your journey Jade!!

My second choice also shows true grit – something I applauded in another last month.  Courage and determination in the face of difficulty.  Some of us face enormous challenges in our running journey.  Physical and psychological.  Everyone’s story is different and the path is rarely easy.  Injuries come and go.  Motivation wanes.  We ebb and flow, returning for bursts – the frequency and length of which vary.  But life can throw in challenges too.  It conspires against us often.  Things we are not in control of prod and poke at the process to send it off-balance.  We roll with the punches and keep coming back for more.  But sometimes, those challenges are big and keep getting bigger.  Sometimes the running is the balance – the thing that makes the path that little bit straighter.  When it’s impacted it takes strength and a great deal of care to ensure we can continue in some form while allowing the body chance to recover and allowing the healing power of activity do its job.  All the while, battling the enormous challenges that life throws at us.  Epic races were tackled and completed.  Appearance at training to keep a level head.  Admiration in the utmost for the dedication through adversity to my second Chair’s Runner of the Month to Chris Richards.  I know that injury is playing havoc right now with running but we look forward to when things are running smoothly again. 💙

parkruns

27 members took the opportunity to run an extra parkrun on New Years Day across 9 different parkrun venues. Jamie Verran was the only member who headed across the border with Clevedon Salthouse Fields added to the club record breaking tourist streak.

The first Saturday of the month saw 81 members at a parkrun which includes runners and volunteers. Well done to the 22 club members who headed up with Karl’s Johnson’s parkrun Tours to Pontefract to tick off a Pont(y)(e) for the Full Ponty challenge with lots now having completed it. With Aberfields cancelled that Saturday, we had bigger turnouts at Maesteg where Nicky Bennett was first finisher, and a good turnout at Porthcawl. Jamie Verran was first finisher at Coed Cefn Pwll Du to equal Jake Tasker on being first finisher at 6 different parkrun venues.

On the second weekend of the month we had 81 members either run or volunteer again. Two members ran at Cardiff where they had over 1,000 runners for the first time in 4 years. There were huge turnouts across Wales with over 500 at Porthcawl and over 450 at Pontypridd. Luke Davis was 3rd overall at Aberfields on his 25th parkrun and last parkrun before heading off to the RAF. There were also volunteer milestones for Abbigayle Dee and Claudine Nicholson-Lewis.

The third Saturday of the month saw 78 members run or volunteer (or both) across 12 parkrun venues. We had 24 runners at Maesteg as part of ‘The Runs’ podcast takeover which is co-hosted by Niki Puleio. Jamie Verran ran his final tourist venue at Evesham before deciding to break the streak.

The final Saturday saw a massive 87 members run or volunteer (or both) across 12 parkrun venues. We had 27 members run at Aberfields for Jamie Verran’s 100th parkrun which saw him end his record breaking tourist streak whilst breaking new records in the process including having the shortest time period from debut to 100th parkrun. It was a shame there happened to be a couple of other super fast runners in attendance as Jamies time of 19:06 would have been quick enough for first finisher at Aberfields most weeks but he had to settle for 3rd. Elsewhere, Sarah and Dawn travelled to The Old Showfield parkrun whilst another tourist group of Vickie, Darija and Satera were at Eastville.

Races

The year started as usual with the Kenfig Prince of Wales race on New Years Day. This used to be a compulsory fixture in order to complete the Festive Four, however, this year runners were given the option to do Old Father Time instead which went ahead on New Years Eve. It meant a reduced turnout at Kenfig but still 10 members from our club with a few of us checking our phones to see if we’d got in through the Marathon Eyri ballot. Carl Walsh and Danny Ridley finish together as our first Phoenix runners across the line followed by myself. Jules Esmond was our first female finisher just ahead of Alison Allen. It was also great to see Ria Ross and Caryn Hicks completing their first Festive Four at the event.

The first XC (Cross Country) fixture of the year took place at Margam Park with an impressive 18 members taking on the course. Jake Tasker took the overall win with a solid performance by our men’s scorers. Trail queen Jade B was our first lady with Katie Plimmer, Jules Esmond, Sarah Davies and Melanie Thomas scoring for a great performance for our ladies team as well. Caryn and Ria also ran the event showing some remarkable progress and dedication to the club and running in general since coming through our Zero to Hero program last year.

We had 9 runners at the infamous Riverbank Rollick as we approach 10 years since myself and Richard Lowcock James were the first members to take on the course – just to note, I’ve never gone back! However, it’s a popular choice with our trial lovers. Carl Walsh and Emma Loyns were our first male and female runners back in that one.

18 members took on the CF64 Winter Trail race which was the first fixture in this years club trail championship. Jake Tasker was first overall and it was another 18 minutes until we saw our next finisher which was Jade who picked up the maximum amount of points for the first fixture.

The was at least one less muddy and / or hilly event in January with the Lliswerry 8 – another event I’ve only done once but is very popular with our members. This year saw 14 members complete the course including a phenomenal time of 44:22 from Nicky Bennett which is the fastest time on that course by any OPR member ever, by some margin. In fact, Steve Holloways time of 46;49 and Kyle Blackmore’s 47:11 were also quicker than our previous fastest time on the course which was 47:13 from Kyle last year. Melinda Thomas was our first female finisher in a race where the men heavily outnumbered the ladies.

At the Chepstow Running Festival, Wayne Hayhurst ran the 10K event. Danny Ridley and Ceri Jones ran the Half Marathon with Emma Loyns one of the official pacers, coming in at only an impressive 3 seconds under the 2:20 pacer time.

Festive Four

New Years Day saw the final event of the latest Festive Four series with a presentation after Porthcawl parkrun in mid-January. Well done to the 18 OPR members who qualified for the t-shirt by completing 4 events over the festive period and particularly well done to our ladies who outnumbered the men with 15 of those 18 qualifiers. A huge congratulations to Tammie Clemett who won the Seasons Best ‘Green t-shirt’ category – this was given to the runner who improved the most on their best time of the year coming into the competition and Tammie peaked at the perfect time with some 2023 best performances in those events. Julia Esmond narrowly missed on a top 3 position in the same category. Denise Bradley was 3rd overall in he Age Graded Results.

Chair’s Runners of the Month

January – into a new year – a year of positivity and passion!

My first choice is no stranger to accolades.  Capturing the hearts of our members on many occasions.  True grit.  It’s a word I use a lot – because I hold it as a great measure and demonstrator of resilience.  Courage and determination in spite of difficulty.  Determined to achieve their goal, no matter how much reaching that goal challenges them.  It’s a trait that holds favour with many who are inspired by seeing it happen.  2023 was a good year for many and my choice here is no exception for whom it went out with a bang.  The competition that many of us take part in to keep us engaged over the festive period is a regular draw for some and each year they give their all.  One year it spelt disaster for one in our midst with an accident during one of it’s events that shelved running for a considerable time – but the story of the return from that won our praise and it has continued to do so.  A story that has many chapters still to be told and each accompanied with a characteristic smile and a determined effort.  The Festive Four saw a significant placing for my first choice, the last event of which crept into the new year.  Always humble about her achievements, but always working hard to record great results.  Absolutely delighted to award my January 2024 Chair’s Runner of the Month to Tammie Baker. Keep up the good work Tammie and keep showing us how it’s done!

My second choice is someone I remember meeting on his first training session with the club up in the valley.  We’ve played cat and mouse on many races in the past and have a number of finish approach photos that show us neck and neck, literally, as we approach the line!  That hasn’t happened for some time as continued improvement for my second choice has shown times tumbling – and while not all about speed – it is a benchmark by which improvement can be measured. I’m always captured by those who juggle busy lives with the ability to train.  Family commitments can so often conspire to derail a training programme and it can take a lot of juggling to make everything work and stay on track.  It takes that extra bit of focus – finding the time when possible to sneak in runs to keep the momentum up.  Again, a humble character who just gets on with it – rocks up and gets the job done notching up impressive performances with a smile and encouragement for all those around him too.  Again, delighted to award my second Chair’s Runner of the Month for January 2024 to Wayne Hayhurst.  Well done Wayne, look forward to catching up soon at a race where you’ll be way ahead of me from the start line!  Keep it up. 

parkrun

2023 saw 3,365 parkrun finishes (up 582 on last year) across 733 events (up 62 on last year). Our members visited 210 different parkruns (up 18 on last year) around the world including Wales, England, Scotland, Ireland, Netherlands, Australia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, USA, Germany, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa and Poland.

2023 saw our parkrun tourism obsession grow with more members than ever running whilst on trips away or seeking out certain letters or numbers for the parkrun alphabet or other different parkrun challenges. Karl Johnson offered tourism trips that varied from North Wales to England to multiple overseas parkruns. Kaye Pedler, Huw Jenkins and Melinda Thomas went on a parkrun adventure that saw them run in Malaysia and Australia. David Sheard started the year in Australia whilst another member, Martin Beard ended the year with parkruns there. A number of members took the opportunity to get some extra parkruns in by visiting countries where they had additional ‘special day’ parkruns not on a Saturday – usually for a national holiday.

Of course, it’s not all about tourism and we continued to have big numbers at our home parkruns of Porthcawl, Maesteg and now Aberfields. The launch of Aberfields headed up by Jay Howells was a huge achievement and significant for our club with a parkrun now in the valley where the club was formed. In fact the first meeting to discuss starting the club took place in the Berwyn Centre which stood just a few hundred metres away from the start line, and our first training session was actually on Aberfields. Our biggest attendance of members at our home parkruns were 57 at Aberfields for the inaugural in August, 55 for the 10 year anniversary run of Porthcawl parkrun which also coincided with a Zero to Hero graduation, and 35 at Maesteg for multiple milestone celebrations back in April.

Maesteg parkrun has continued to be a bit of a recruitment hub for our club just as Porthcawl was in the early days with multiple new members being signed up after seeing our runners or being approached at one of the events.

Number of parkruns completed in 2023

1. Nick Harris – 56 – new club record
2. Jamie Verran – 55 – every UK parkrun day plus one extra overseas extra
3. Brett Bonnell – 54 – every UK parkrun day available
4. Saul Harris – 53
5. David Kembery – 51
6. Gareth Jenkins – 50
7. Sharon Pritchard – 50
8. Tom Mahoney – 49
9. Aled Hughes – 49
10. Linda Harris – 48

This is the first time we’ve had 7 members reach ‘Gold Obsessive’ for completing 50 parkruns in one calendar year and easily our highest combined top 10. Interestingly Nick tops the standings for 2023 but did actually miss a parkrun on the morning on Snowdonia Marathon but made up for that with three extra overseas parkruns this year on special (non-Saturday) days. In doing so, he took top spot for most overall parkruns for the club and is now one ahead of me on 449 parkruns after I’d held top spot for the past 5 years. Jamie Verran has continued his remarkable record of not missing a parkrun since his first in April 2022 and is closing in on the club record of 96. Others who ran 40+ parkruns which gets them a ‘silver obsessive badge’ on the parkrun challenges but didn’t make the top 10 include Melanie Thomas, Chris Pratt, Jo Jenkins, Chris Roberts, Sarah Davies, David Sheard and Alison Allen. Jo Jenkins became the first female member of the club to reach the 250 parkrun milestone and this year has overtaken Bev Sheard to have completed the most parkruns whilst a member of the club.

This year we’ve seen plenty of milestones…

• 250 – Jo Jenkins
• 100 – Brett Bonell
• 100 – Jay Howells
• 100 – Nicky Bennett
• 100 – Rhodri Thomas
• 100 – Nicky Bennett
• 100 – Toni Howells
• 100 – Tom Mahoney
• 100 – Nige Rees
• 100 – Carl Price
• 100 – Sian Jenkins
• 100 – Melinda Thomas
• 100 – Huw Jenkins
• 100 – Rhiannon Whiteley
• 100 – Liam O’Sullivan
• 50 – Jamie Verran
• 50 – Emyr Bissmire
• 50 – Claire Dunbar-Bowen
• 50 – Carys Bissmire
• 50 – Max King
• 50 – Kierran Spiers
• 50 – Bethan Moor
• 50 – Wayne Randall
• 50 – Fiona Evans
• 50 – Laura Worrall
• 50 – Ben Batchelor
• 50 – Kevin Raymond

parkrun tourism

Gareth Jenkins became the 6th member to achieve ‘Cowell Club’ status by running at his 100th different event back in February. Jamie Verran obliterated pretty much every club record going for parkrun tourism by visiting 55 different venues in one year – it’s likely there are only a handful worldwide that have matched or beaten that number this year (feel free to investigate this Jamie!).

Number of new parkrun venues visited in 2023

1. Jamie Verran – 55
2. Melanie Thomas – 24
3. Lee Dunbar-Bowen- 22
4. Claire Dunbar-Bowen – 21
5. Dawn Hopkins – 17
6. Karl Johnson – 17
7. Linda Harris – 16
8. Chris Roberts – 16
9. Jay Howells – 16
10. Nick Harris – 15

Most parkrun tourisms overall as at the end of 2023

1. Karl Johnson – 131
2. Chris Roberts – 129
3. Dawn Hopkins – 121
4. Julie Ransom – 120
5. Shawn Cullen – 112
6. Gareth Jenkins – 104
7. Kris Denholm – 86
8. Sarah Davies – 85
9. Chris Stanlake – 76
10. Jo Jenkins – 74

The overall top 10 contains the same 10 as the end of last year with very little movement apart from Dawn climbing from 5th to 3rd. Interestingly, of that top 10, only 3 made the list for most tourisms this year – probably as a result of their nearest events not yet done (NENYD) being at least a 3 hour round trip.

Top 10 parkrun times

Jacob Tasker has the fastest 6 times of the year with 15:55, 15:56, 16:28, 16:33, 16:40 – Jacob only ran 11 parkuns this year, finishing first overall in 9 of them. Those 9 first finishes includes 5 different venues including course records at Aberfields and Coed Cefn Pwll Du plus beating his own fastest time of anyone in the club at Maesteg. He also finished first overall twice at the highly competitive Cardiff parkrun where he ran his two fastest times. Nicky Bennett picked up the most first finishes this year with 14 (11 at Maesteg and 3 at Porthcawl). Nicky clocked 16:42 and 16:46 (both at Porthcawl) for the 7th and 8th fastest OPR times this year. New kid on the block, Angelo Doria finished first overall in 4 of his 8 parkruns and had the next fastest time after Jacob and Nicky with a 17:15 at Porthcawl.

For the ladies, Bethan Moor clocked the fastest parkrun time of the year with 22:03 at Porthcawl just one second ahead of a 22:04 PB for Claire Dunbar-Bowen at Aberbeeg. Carys Bissmire ran a faster 5K than both in a race this year but her parkrun PB was 23:08 at Swansea Bay this year. Similarly, Katie Plimmer ran faster 5K race times but her parkrun PB was 23:35 at Porthcawl.

Volunteering

Top 10 parkrun volunteer credits in 2023

1. Stephne Puddy 68
2. Chris Stanlake 58
3. Karl Johnson 58
4. Alison Allen 52
5. Greg Allen 50
6. Angela Parry 37
7. Sian Jenkins 34
8. Rhiain Casseldine-Forman 28
9. Rhiannon Whiteley 27
10. Judith Howells 25

Top 10 Total overall parkrun volunteer credits

1. Alison Allen 284
2. Stephne Puddy 270
3. Greg Allen 258
4. Karl Johnson 230
5. Mia Allen 144
6. Chis Stanlake 142
7. Rhiannon Whiteley 141
8. Angela Parry 130
9. Freya Allen 116
10. Rhiain Casseldine-Forman 104

With the Allen’s joining the club, they now dominate our top 10 volunteer counts overall with their fantastic work at Bridgend junior parkrun in additional to Saturday parkrun volunteering. Stephne Puddy’s 68 volunteer credits in a single calendar year is a new club record. With us already having Karl Johnson, Stephne Puddy, Sian Jenkins being parkrun Run Directors at the start of the year, we’ve now added to that list – Jay Howells, Liz Davis, Chris Stanlake and Claudine Nicholson-Lewis who have all taken on the role since Aberfields started in August. New member this year Rhiain Casseldine-Forman has also been a long time Run Director at Market Harborough juniors. Aberfields parkruns volunteer roster is regularly filled with OPR members and has been a significant change in how many of our members are now regular parkrun volunteers. Jay Howells, Toni Howells, Chris Pratt and myself just missed out on the list for most volunteer credits with over 20 each in 2023. Sharon Pritchard and Sian Jenkins are likely to become our next 100 time parkrun volunteers. A huge thank you to all the volunteers.

5K races

OPR members ran in 21 different 5K events this year with 396 finishes and 23 PB’s. Out biggest 5K (and biggest overall event of the year) was Merthyr Mawr 5K where we had 102 finishers.

Late spring and summer saw the usual plethora of 5K events with 3 SSAFA events, 3 Aberavon events, 3 Swansea Bay events plus the super speedy Race for Victory event in Whitchurch with many PB’s throughout the club.

Top 10 fastest men (measured 5K races only excluding parkrun)

1. Jacob Tasker – 15:01 (PB and new club record)
2. Nicky Bennett  – 15:59 (PB)
3. Angelo Doria – 16:30 (PB)
4. Toby Kearns – 17:46 (PB)
5. Aled Hughes – 17:47 (PB)
6. Steve Holloway – 17:55
7. Mark Teesdale – 18:15 (PB)
8. Dylan Panting – 18:20 (PB
9. Dai James – 18:24
10. Emyr Bissmire / Jamie Verran – 18:26 (both PBs)

In total, we had 23 men run a 5K or parkrun under 20 minutes this year with 14 of them being sub 19 which is our most ever.

Top 10 fastest women (measured 5K races only – excluding parkrun)

1. Carys Cronin – 21:57 (PB)
2. Katie Plimmer – 22:31 (PB)
3. Willow Hughes – 22:45 (PB)
4. Claire Dunbar-Bowen – 22:48
5. Jade Bazylkiewicz – 23:03
6. Sarah Davies – 24:17
7. Jo Jenkins – 24:31
8. Denise Bradley – 24:35
9. Arwen Rees – 24:53
10. Freya Allen – 25:30

10K

OPR members ran in 27 different 10K events this year with 292 finishes and 52 PB’s. Sharon Pritchard and Debbie Bennion were our most prolific 10K-ers with 10 events each. Our biggest attended 10K events of the year was Porthcawl 10K with 59 members completing the course.

Top 10 fastest males

1. Jacob Tasker – 31:45 (PB and new club record)
2. Nicky Bennett – 33:23 (PB)
3. Geraint Lewis – 35:36
4. Toby Kearns – 37:35 (PB)
5. Aled Hughes – 37:36 (PB)
6. Gareth Richards – 37:48
7. Niki Puleio – 38:02
8. Dylan Panting – 39:18 (PB)
9. Mark Teesdale – 39:21 (PB)
10. Emyr Bissmire – 39:27 (PB)

Adam Kearns, Wayne Randall and Connor Panting all also ran sub 40 making it the most members under 40 minutes in a single calendar year in the history of the club. Honourable mention for Tom Mahoney who ran a PB of 40:01.

Top 10 fastest female

1. Claire Dunbar-Bowen – 47:11 (PB)
2. Katie Plimmer – 48:11 (PB)
3. Carys Cronin – 49:06
4. Arwen Rees – 53:06 (PB)
5. Deborah Edwards – 53:08 (PB)
6. Carol Bartle – 54:12
7. Liz Davis – 54:50
8. Fiona Drysdale – 55:10
9. Angharad Hinam – 55:17
10. Steph Iveson-Holmes – 56:46 (PB)

Interestingly 6 of our fastest female runners from last year didn’t complete a 10K this year as they concentrated on other distances.

Half Marathon

OPR members ran in 25 different Half Marathon events this year with 168 finishes and 24 PB’s. Our biggest attended Half Marathon was of course Cardiff with 82 members completing the course. Our members took up official pacing positions in many Half Marathons this year with Emma Loyns pacing at the Big Half and Cardiff Half (amongst others from the club) whilst I paced at the Great Welsh Half and Swansea Half. Sharon Pritchard and Debbie Bennion were our most prolific Half Marathoners with 5 events each. Jacob Tasker set a new course record at the Pumsaint Half Marathon.

Top 10 Fastest Male

1. Jacob Tasker – 1:09:35 (PB and new club record)
2. Nicky Bennett – 1:13:54 (PB)
3. Angelo Doria – 1:16:01 (PB)
4. Steve Holloway – 1:17:22 (PB)
5. Gareth Richards – 1:24:33
6. Aled Hughes – 1:26:56 (PB)
7. Scott Gray – 1:29:03
8. Toby Kearns – 1:29:14
9. Emyr Bissmire – 1:30:34
10. Wayne Hayhurst – 1:31:56

Interesting fact courtesy of his interview on the recently started ‘The Runs’ podcast (co-hosted by the clubs very own Niki Puleio) – Nicky Bennett has now knocked over an hour off his debut half marathon time which was a few years before joining the club.

Top 10 fastest female

1. Jade Bazyliewicz – 1:46:56 (PB)
2. Carys Cronin – 1:51:31
3. Emma Loyns – 1:52:04
4. Carol Bartle – 1:53:56
5. Gemma Richards – 1:57:56
6. Rosie Salvatore – 1:58:57
7. Claire Dunbar-Bowen – 1:59:23
8. Jo Jenkins – 2:03:12
9. Alison Allen – 2:04:18
10. Elizabeth Sim – 2:04:24

Marathon

OPR members ran in 25 different marathons this year with 96 finishes and 31 PB’s. We also had marathon finishes in 8 different countries mainly due to Carl Walsh’s adventures (more on that later). Some highlights include Jacob Tasker leading Marathon Eryri (Snowdon) for the first half and eventually finishing 4th in a club record time of 2:35:24 – a time which would have won the race in most years. Niki Puleio ran the second and third fastest times of the year with a 2:54 and 2:58 at Boston and New York respectively as he continues his quest to run all the Marathon Majors in under 3 hours. Paul Smith ran a sub 3 at London Marathon with a 2:59 whilst Niki made a 3rd appearance in the top 6 marathon times of this year with a 3:03 at the same event. Aled Hughes agonisingly missed a sub 3 at Newport by 37 seconds but worth pointing out it was a 28 minute PB! There were remarkable marathon debuts by Toby and Adam Kearns at Newport Marathon with 3:17 and 3:26 respectively whilst Emyr Bissmire ran 3:16 at London on his marathon debut. Ken Salvatore ran a 3:55 PB at Berlin. With Dai James running at Chicago, we had runners in 5 of the 6 Marathon Majors this year.

Claire Dunbar-Bowen was our fastest lady with a 3:46 at London and ran the first half with Emma Loyns who ended up with a PB of 3:53 just a few weeks after running a sub 4 marathon PB at Southampton.

Aside from those already mentioned, there were PB’s for Chris Richards, Kate Lee, Rob Loyns, Stephne Puddy and Shelley Evans at London this year. Our biggest marathon of the year was Marathon Eryri (Snowdon) with 25 runners where aside from Jacob’s incredible run we also had Gareth Richards running 3:26 and Daniel Jenkins knocking 16 minutes off his time from the previous year with a 3:37. Katie Plimmer ran her debut marathon with a 4:43 having run the majority with Emma Loyns who picked up and helped several Phoenix runners along the way. Ceri Jones and Melanie Thomas also ran their debut marathons at Snowdonia.

Other highlights include Kaye Pedler finally ticking off that Marathon PB she desperately wanted with a 5:18 at the Long Course Weekend in Tenby where there were also PB’s for Deb Edwards and Sian Jenkins. There are to many PB’s to list them all but a special mention to Heather Morgan who returned from a long term injury to complete the Great Welsh Marathon.

Top 10 fastest Male

1. Jacob Tasker – 2:35:24 (PB and new club record)
2. Niki Puleio – 2:54:38
3. Paul Smith – 2:59:00
4. Aled Hughes – 3:00:37 (PB)
5. Emyr Bissmire – 3:16:10
6. Dai James – 3:16:33
7. Toby Kearns – 3:17:42
8. Gareth Richards – 3:26:24
9. Adam Kearns – 3:26:42
10. Daniel Jenkins – 3:37:08

Top 10 fastest Female

1. Claire Dunbar-Bowen – 3:46:07 (PB)
2. Emma Loyns – 3:53:50 (PB)
3. Kate Lee – 4:10:40 (PB)
4. Carol Bartle – 4:10:56 (PB)
5. Angharad Hinam – 4:37:36 (PB)
6. Liz Sim – 4:38:05
7. Katie Plimmer – 4:43:16 (PB)
8. Sian Thomas – 4:43:21 (PB)
9. Sarah Davies – 4:50:25
10. Denise Bradley – 4:56:49

Ultras / Challenges / Crazy Feats of Endurance

From 26.2 miles to 100 miles – there were some exceptional feats of endurance this year with many taking on multiple long distance challenges.

I have to start with Carl Walsh who ran 12 marathons and 14 ultra marathons this year to join the prestigious 100 Marathon Club. For those not familiar – the 100 Marathon Club has been around for many decades and celebrates runners who have run 100 official Marathons or further. Carl becomes the first OPR member to achieve this and purposely lined it up so his 100th would be at Marathon Eryri. His 101st wasn’t a bad location either with it being New York Marathon just a week later! Carl’s commitment to long distance running is unmatched in the club with him averaging a marathon or more every other weekend and often does several weekends in a row. Not only that, many of those 100 have been tough, off road, big elevation marathons and ultras in the Brecon Beacons and Black Mountains. There’s no easy way of getting into the 100 marathon club but Carl has probably done it the hard way! His journey to 100 marathons have taken him around the world and there are plans in place for him to complete a marathon on every continent with most already ticked off.

In February, I participated in a local charity event where I ran 88 miles in 24 hours before going to parkrun. I continued to find ‘different / bonkers’ ultras as I participated in Fallout which was a new variation on Escape from Meriden and having to run your own planned route as far away as possible whilst chased by a ‘radioactive cloud’. I completed my second 100 miler with my 3 year build up to finally enter and complete the Dragon 100. I then went on to run over 50 miles in another charity event around Roath Park Lake in Cardiff. I’ve said I’m retired from Ultras now having run 50 miles or more on 11 occasions in the 3 years I’ve been doing Ultra-marathons which is currently the most of anyone in the club.

Gareth Richards ran the Brecon to Cardiff 44 mile Ultra back in February before going on to complete the Dragon 100 from Rhosilli to Cardiff Bay for the second year in row. Incredibly, he was only a few minutes slower than the year before despite spending most of the 3 months leading up to it injured and barely running at all. As mentioned earlier, Gareth later went on to run the Snowdonia Marathon in 3:26.

Our most prolific female endurance runner was Emma Loyns who after running 10 marathons or ultras in 2022 for charity, did another 9 in 2023. In May she took on what I would argue is easily the toughest ultra anyone in the club has attempted – the Ultra Trail Snowdonia 100K – a 64 mile race with 21,000 feet of elevation. To put that in perspective, Marathon Eryri has 2,500 feet of elevation. Not only that, UTS is over severe technical terrain with inclines so steep and uneven that it can take up to 40 minutes to complete a single mile in parts. To add to this, the temperature on the day of the race was pretty much unheard of for Snowdonia and unfortunately that meant Emma had to call it a day but only having still completed 50K and a crazy amount of elevation. Incredibly, Emma picked herself back up and entered the Dragon 100 miler – a huge step up in distance as Emma’s previous longest race completed was a 50 miler last year. Emma completed the Dragon 100 becoming one of only two current female members of the club (at the time of writing) to complete a 100 mile race.

Other fantastic ultra distance achievements this year saw Denise Bradley complete 50 miles in the same charity 24 hour event I participated in at the start of the year. Kris Denholm called it a day after 44 miles and David Thomas who ambitiously set a goal of 100 miles and was on target for the first 7-8 hours had to pull out having completed 40 miles. Denise also went on to complete 100k over 2 days at Race to the Kings to complete the ‘Race to the ___’ series of ultras. Dai James also completed that 2 day event having run both Brecon to Cardiff and the VOGUM earlier in the year. Melanie Thomas completed 3 Ultras around the 30-40 mile distances with new member Rhiain Casseldine-Forman joining her on all three.

Our biggest Ultra of the year was yet again the Vale Ultra where Carl Price ran an incredible 5:18:40 in his debut ultra for one of our fastest Vale times ever. Kaye Pedler and Jo Jenkins completed their first ultras on the day.

A couple of noteworthy comebacks this year with Leanne Parson returning to Brecon to Cardiff where she had dropped out having completed over 30 miles the year before to complete it this year. Angharad Hinam provided the most intense, nail-biting performance of the year at the Dragon 100 – a race where she was pulled out in a previous year having not met the cut off and also had to withdraw from a short notice in another year due to injury coupled with cancellations due to COVID. This year she unfortunately got lost again but thankfully with the help of her coach (and former member) Steven, she got back on track and made it to the ‘half way’ checkpoint in Kenfig with just minutes to spare. In fact, they told her she didn’t have time to change and had to just continue to avoid being pulled out of the race again. Special permission was given for Steven to assist her for a section of the race to get her back on track and incredibly she reached each of the checkpoints with less than 30 minutes to spare throughout finishing just 20 minutes before the 34 hour midnight cut off with myself and Emma waiting for her along with Steven, her husband, Jo Jenkins, Heather Morgan and Rob Loyns who had all supported throughout the 34 hours.

Longest distances achieved in charity / race ultra’s in 2023

1. Gareth Richards / Gareth Jenkins / Emma Loyns / Angharad Hinam – 100 miles – Dragon 100

5. Gareth Jenkins – 88 miles – Charity 24 hour event in Bryncethin

6. Simon Poole – 62 miles – Race to the Stones 100K

7. Denise Bradley / Dai James – 62 miles (over 2 days) – Race to the Kings 100K

9. Carl Walsh – 55 miles – Comrades

10. Gareth Jenkins – 52 miles – Loop-a-thon charity event in Roath Park

Incredibly that means Angharad Hinams Gower 50 doesn’t make the list, Denise’s 50 miler at the charity event, or the members who completed Brecon to Cardiff 44 miler.

Race and overall totals

Total number of events in 2023 (parkruns plus races)

1. Aled Hughes 93
2. Nick Harris 92
3. Sharon Pritchard 89
4. Gareth Jenkins 81
5. Jamie Verran 79
6. Dawn Hopkins 76
7. Melanie Thomas 76
8. Debbie Bennion 75
9. Sarah Davies 72
10. Emyr Bissmire 71

Sharon Prichard sets a new female club record for most events in a year beating Dawn’s record from last year by 1 event. Aled was well on course for 100+ at one point this year before work commitments meant a reduction in the frequency of races.

Most Races (not including parkruns)

1. Aled Hughes 44
2. Sharon Pritchard 39
3. Debbie Bennion 38
4. Jacob Tasker 33
5. Dawn Hopkins 32
6. Gareth Jenkins 31
7. Nicky Bennett 31
8. Melanie Thomas 30
9. Sarah Davies 29
10. Katie Plimmer 29

Overall most events

1. Gareth Jenkins 785
2. Nick Harris 742
3. Aled Hughes 582
4. Chris Pratt 571
5. Dai Kembo 491
6. David Sheard 458
7. Dawn Hopkins 427
8. Kris Denholm 420
9. Chris Roberts 390
10. Jo Jenkins 376

This year saw Aled overtake Chris into 3rd spot whilst Jo Jenkins overtook Denise to make the top 10. Jo is actually the most recent member to join out of the top 10 having been in the club 7 years compared to 8-11 years for the rest. Our top 10 have run 5,240 events between them.

Overall most races (not including parkruns)

1. Gareth Jenkins 340
2. Nick Harris 295
3. Aled Hughes 240
4. Chris Pratt 215
5. Dawn Hopkins 209
6. Denise Bradley 187
7. Sharon Pritchard 167
8. Mark Worrall 161
9. Debbie Bennion 159
10. Niki Puleio 152

Cross Country

The club continues to participate in both the West Glamorgan League and the Gwent League with separate male and female teams contesting. The men are currently 5th in the top division of the West Glam league after 2 fixtures of the 23/24 season with the ladies in 3rd in division 2 after a successful 22/23 season which was completed back in March with both teams maintaining their current division status.

In the Gwent League we had a great turnout for the men at Pembrey for the first fixture of the 23/24 season whilst at Llandaff we had full scoring teams for both the men and women.

As a result of some great performances in Pembrey which was the qualification event to represent South Wales at the Inter-Regional Welsh Championships, we had our biggest amount of call ups in the clubs history. Bethan Moor, Sarah Davies and Katie Plimmer ran in the ladies race whilst Nicky Bennett, Niki Puleio and Davidleigh Bulter ran for South Wales in the men’s event. Angelo Doria also received a call up for the Under 20’s men’s team.

Fiona Drysdale did the most cross country league events notching up an incredible 8 events this year whilst Nicky Bennett also did 8 cross country events made up of 6 league events plus the Welsh XC Championships and Inter-Regional events.

Bridgend County Running League (BCRL)

153 different members ran at least one BCRL event. We had 592 finishes across the 7 events averaging just short of 85 per fixture. 19 members ran every fixture with a few more only missing one because they volunteered at our own event.

Bridgend were back in force this season and the new scoring system which meant the top 10 men and women from each club counted towards the ‘scoring’ places with everyone else getting minus 1 seemed to benefit other clubs more than us in the early events.

To win the BCRL, it requires getting three elements correct – a strong top 10 men, a strong top 10 women and big attendances for those crucial minus 1’s. We seemed to improve throughout the season in all 3. In the men’s scoring we regularly had about 20 men capable of running sub 20 in contention for those top 10 scoring places and with further recruitment throughout the season including wonderkid Angelo, then we got stronger and more dominant throughout. In the final event, we actually had the top 3 overall with Jacob, Nicky and Angelo capping off an incredible season. The ladies were up against it with Bridgend and Porthcawl having really strong women’s teams, but our ladies held their own and produced some incredibly determined performances throughout the season to keep us in contention. Sarah Wilkes and Bethan Moor both ran in 5 fixtures despite both having to travel 30-45 minutes to each event from their respective homes and battled it out for our first female finisher in those events. Willow Hughes, Katie Plimmer, Carys Cronin, Claire Dunbar-Bowen, Jade B, Sarah Davies were consistently in our top 10 female places in the events they ran. Then we had a huge number battling it out for the final few top 10 places each time with the likes of Jo Jenkins, Fiona Drysdale, Denise Bradley, Jules Esmond, Alison Allen, Freya Allen and Melanie Thomas. Our attendances were incredible with the final event hitting triple figures with 102 finishers at Merthyr Mawr Lane 5K.

In terms of the Team results, we won the Kenfig, Planka and Heol y Mynydd fixtures which as I write this I’ve realised we won probably the 3 toughest fixtures! Bridgend led the way for the first 4 fixtures before we took top spot overall after the fifth event and never looked back.

Jacob won 6 out of the 7 fixtures with Nicky Bennett winning the other meaning that OPR have had the winner of the last 14 fixtures in a row. We also had 10 age category winners.

An incredible season to retain our BCRL title.  Every single person made a difference whether our first finisher or our final finisher.

A huge thank you to everyone who ran, volunteered, organised and supported in our championship winning year. And here’s to making it a treble next year!

Club Trail Championship

This year saw the return of the club trail championship with a mixture of local parkruns, BCRL races, XC fixtures and a variety of distances ranging at local events including the Rabbit Run, Beast of Bryn and Vale races. Some great competition throughout the series with the final showdown at the Merthyr Mawr Pudding Run. I won’t spoil the surprise and put the final standings as these will be presented at the presentation night.

Club Training in 2023

The club continues to offer a variety of training sessions which continue to grow in numbers. Emma Loyns continued her strength classes on a Monday which has regularly been one of the biggest attended sessions of the week. Tuesdays have continued with a mixture of effort and mile sessions. Wednesdays now consist of Flyers and other club sessions. We also have Track twice a month where many of the sessions have come together. Thursdays have continued back at our original home in the Ogmore Valley where several themed / celebratory runs have taken place this year. Then there’s been trial Sundays which are regularly providing something different. Also not forgetting our junior section which meet on Mondays. We’ve had a number of new Lirfs this year alongside our long standing cohort who keep us motivated and active throughout the year.

Other club activities in 2023

Presentation night saw a very popular Runners Runner winner with Laura Worrall taking the title and becoming only the second female member of the club to win the top prize. The top 3 was rounded out by Gareth Richards – his 3rd top 3 finish without winning it, and last years Runners Runner, Jacob Tasker. After Jacob walking away with most of the awards last year, it was a big more evenly spread this time with no one winning more than two awards and 18 different winners in total. Niki Puleio, Emma Loyns, Gareth Richards and Laura Worrall were all double winners on the night.

June saw a momentous occasion for the club as we competed in the Welsh Castles relay for the first time. This has been a long term goal for the club since we first started the club over 11 years ago. We also had two teams again at the Rack Raid Relays.

The Phoenix gazebo returned to Ogmore by Sea to welcome in the Vale runners. In October we saw the return of the Snowdonia Marathon weekend with over 40 OPR members and supporters travelling up to the event. Phoenix corner was bigger and better than ever with more members than ever staying until the final runners came in.

The Phantom Phoenix continues to keep us guessing. Our X (Twitter), Instagram and Facebook pages also continue to keep members up to date. We saw the return of regular blog posts during the year with a few more to be published soon. Pippa and I have posted almost 5,000 individual results throughout the year with the master excel file I keep now having over 33,000 results.

A huge well done to every member who has participated in training, races, volunteered or simply encouraged others this year.