Category: Running

Headline stats

parkruns – 3,434 finishes over 664 events

5K races – 547 finishes over 26 events

10K races – 326 finishes over 33 events

Half Marathon races – 168 finishes over 25 events

Marathon races – 75 finishes over 19 events

Ultra races – 22 finishes over 16 events

Other races – 831 finishes over 62 events

Total – 5,403 finishes over 845 events

parkrun

2024 saw 3,434 parkrun finishes (up 69 on last year) across 664 events (down 69 on last year). Our members visited 261 different parkruns (up 51 on last year) around the world including Wales, England, Scotland, Ireland, Netherlands, Australia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, USA, Germany, Malaysia, Singapore and Poland.

2024 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 overnight stopovers and overseas parkruns. Dawn Hopkins and Sarah Davies both achieved their second parkrun alphabet whilst Sarah also became the 7th member to run at 100 different parkrun venues.

Of course, it’s not all about tourism and we continued to have big numbers at our home parkruns of Porthcawl, Maesteg and Aberfields. Aberfields was the venue for this years Zero to Hero graduation which was one of the biggest club turnouts of the year whilst there was also a significant turnout at Aberfields for Nick Harris 500th parkrun at the end of the year.

Number of parkruns completed in 2024

1. Jamie Verran – 54 – every UK parkrun day
2. Nick Harris – 53
3. Dawn Hopkins – 52 – new female club record
4. Kris Denholm – 52
5. Melanie Thomas – 50
6. Sarah Davies – 49
7. Dai Kembery – 47
8. Aled Hughes – 47
9. Linda Harris – 47
10. Gareth Jenkins – 46

Dawn and Melanie became the first female members of the club to achieve ‘Gold Obsessive’ status by running 50 or more parkruns in a calendar year. Sarah would also have achieved this had it not been for the red weather warning for Storm Darragh. Jamie Verran continues his unbelievable run of not missing a UK parkrun day since his first back in April 2022 and is now on an unbroken streak of 149. Others who ran 40+ parkruns which gets them a ‘silver obsessive badge’ on the parkrun challenges but didn’t make the top 10 include Chris Pratt, Toby Kearns, Debbie Bennion, Sally Pensom, Saul Harris and Claire Goldsworthy. Jo Jenkins still leads the way for most parkruns overall by a female member and was the first to reach 300 parkruns.

This year we’ve seen plenty of milestones…

• 500 – Nick Harris
• 250 – Claire Goldsworthy
• 250 – Bev Sheard
• 250 – Dawn Hopkins
• 250 – Karl Johnson
• 250 – Saul Harris
• 100- Jamie Verran
• 100 – Gareth Davies
• 100 – Alexis Barrett
• 100 – Dawn Wright
• 100 – Darija Keenor
• 100 – Karen Dando
• 100 – Wayne Hayhurst
• 100 – Gwyneth Steddy
• 100 – Emyr Bissmire
• 100 – Jayne Bissmire
• 100 – Lucy Howells
• 100 – Kaye Pedler
• 100 – Claire Dunbar-Bowen
• 50 – Ceri Jones
• 50 – Lee Dunbar-Bowen
• 50 – Vickie Blake
• 50 – Gareth Thomas
• 50 – Jason Griffiths
• 50 – Helen Griffiths
• 50 – Kate Atkin
• 50 – Deb Griffin
• 50 – John Burridge
• 50 – Mike Nicholson Lewis
• 50 – Jake Tasker
• 50 – James Marsh
• 50 – Heather Morgan
• 50 – Jonathan Matthews
• 50 – Paul Harris
• 50 – Carl Walsh

Another huge year for milestones with our biggest yet with Nick Harris becoming the first member of the club to reach 500 on 21st December. Next year will see two more join him (myself and Chris Pratt). We had a record number of 250 milestones in a calendar year with 5 including Claire Goldsworthy who ran 249 of them at Porthcawl and only broke the 100% record at one venue a couple of weeks before her 250 milestone.

parkrun tourism

Sarah Davies became the 7th member to achieve ‘Cowell Club’ status by running at her 100th different parkrun venue. A record year for tourism saw 11 number of members add 20 or more different parkrun venues to their count. Last year that number was just 5 members.

Number of new parkrun venues visited in 2024

1. Darija Keenor – 31
2. Dawn Hopkins – 29
3. Karl Johnson – 25
4. Melanie Thomas – 23
5. Vickie Blake – 23
6. Sarah Davies – 22
7. Nick Harris – 22
8. Gareth Thomas – 22
9. Saul Harris – 22
10. Kaye Pedler- 21

Most parkrun tourisms overall as at the end of 2024

1. Karl Johnson – 157
2. Dawn Hopkins – 150
3. Chris Roberts – 141
4. Julie Ransom – 127
5. Shawn Cullen – 117
6. Gareth Jenkins – 109
7. Sarah Davies – 107
8. Kris Denholm – 97
9. Melanie Thomas – 86
10. Jo Jenkins – 81

During 2024, Dawn moved into second place ahead of Chris Roberts who had a quieter year for new venues. Sarah Davies climbed a couple of places whilst Melanie Thomas features in the top 10 for the first time. We now have 29 members that have run 50 or more different parkrun venues and 54 that have run more than 20 different venues.

Top 10 parkrun times

Jacob Tasker has the fastest 3 times of the year with 15:24, 15:49, 16:15, 16:19, 16:21, 16:37, 16:38 – Jacob only ran 8 parkuns this year, finishing first overall in 7 of them. Those 7 first finishes includes 6 different venues including beating his own fastest time of anyone in the club at Maesteg. We had 25 first finishers in 2024 including Nicky Bennett, Nico, Paul Teesdale, Jamie Verran, Niki Puleio, Aled Hughes, Rhodri Thomas and Jonathan Matthews.

For the ladies, Bethan Moor clocked the fastest parkrun time of the year with 20:55 with Katie Plimmer running a parkrun PB of 21:27 in the final parkrun of the year. Our ladies picked up 23 first female finishers between them with Carys Bissmire (6), Bethan Moor (5), Sarah Davies (2), Alison Allen (2), Arwen Rees (2) plus one each for Claire Dunbar-Bowen, Dawn Hopkins, Deborah Edwards, Fiona Drysdale, Freya Allen and Marina Konstantinova.

Volunteering

Top 10 parkrun volunteer credits in 2024

1. Chris Stanlake 83 – new club record
2. Greg Allen 61
3. Alison Allen 58
4. Karl Johnson 58
5. Jay Howells 50
6. Gareth Jenkins 42
7. Rhiannon Whiteley 36
8. Angela Parry 35
9. Toni Howells 35
10. Debbie Bennion / Sharon Pritchard 30

Members with 100 or more parkrun volunteer credits

1. Alison Allen 343
2. Greg Allen 320
3. Karl Johnson 279
4. Chis Stanlake 226
5. Rhiannon Whiteley 177
6. Angela Parry 166
7. Mia Allen 154
8. Rhiain Casseldine-Forman 135
9. Freya Allen 124
10. Sharon Pritchard 124
11. Gareth Jenkins 110
12. Jay Howells 105
13. Liam O’Sullivan 100
14. Debbie Bennion 100

Chris Stanlakes 83 volunteer credits in a single calendar year is a new club record, beating the 68 that Stephne Puddy set in 2023. Of the top 10 volunteers for 2024, 9 out of 10 did more volunteering than in 2023 with Angela Parry only doing a couple less than her 2023 total, but still a hefty contribution of 35. 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. The Team Challenge also encouraged volunteering this year. Other regular volunteers this year have been Claire Goldsworthy, Dai Kembery, Jamie Verran, Judith Howells, Liam O’Sullivan, Nick Harris and Chris Pratt who have all volunteered on over 20 occasions. Dai Kembery is just a couple away from being our next member to reach 100 volunteer credits. A huge thank you to all the volunteers.

5K races

OPR members ran in 26 different 5K events this year with a record 527 finishes and 42 PB’s. Our biggest 5K (and biggest overall event of the year) was Merthyr Mawr 5K where we had 98 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 – 14:53 (PB and new club record)
2. Angelo Doria – 16:10 (PB)
3. Daniel Richards – 16:40 (PB)
4. Paul Teesdale – 17:11 (PB)
5. Niki Puleio – 17:19 (PB)
6. Nicky Bennett – 17:58
7. Jamie Verran – 18:21 (PB)
8. Aled Hughes – 18:24
9. Gareth Richards – 18:24
10. John Burridge 18:39

In total, we had record 26 men run a 5K or parkrun under 20 minutes this year with a record 16 of them being sub 19.

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

1. Katie Plimmer – 20:52 (PB)
2. Bethan Moor – 20:55
3. Willow Hughes – 21:05 (PB)
4. Carys Cronin – 22:29
5. Sian Price – 22:37
6. Claire Dunbar-Bowen – 22:43
7. Sarah Davies – 22:54 (PB)
8. Gemma Richards – 23:13 (PB)
9. Angharad Croot – 23:35 (PB)
10. Marina Konstantinova – 24:21 (PB)

In 2023, our fastest female time was 21:57 and 10th fastest female ran 25:30 showing remarkable improvement across our quickest ladies.

10K

OPR members ran in 33 different 10K events this year with 326 finishes and 59 PB’s. All figures are higher than 2023. For the second year in a row Debbie Bennion was our most prolific 10K-er with 7 events. Our biggest attended 10K events of the year was Porthcawl 10K with 67 members completing the course.

Top 10 fastest males

1. Jacob Tasker – 30:57 (PB and new club record)
2. Daniel Richards – 34:16 (PB)
3. Angelo Doria – 34:26 (PB)
4. Nicky Bennett – 34:53
5. Niki Puleio – 36:07 (PB)
6. Paul Teesdale – 37:01 (PB)
7. John Burridge – 37:39 (PB)
8. Kieron Burridge – 38:26 (PB)
9. Aled Hughes – 38:26
10. Scott Gray – 38:38 (PB)

Thomas Daly, Gareth Richards, Toby Kearns, Connor Panting and Dylan 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.

Top 10 fastest female

1. Gemma Richards – 46:08 (PB)
2. Katie Plimmer – 46:37 (PB)
3. Carys Cronin – 48:33
4. Claire Dunbar-Bowen – 48:46
5. Angharad Croot – 48:46
6. Willow Hughes – 49:31
7. Sarah Davies – 49:41
8. Arwen Rees – 50:28 (PB)
9. Mia Allen – 53:36
10. Alison Allen – 54:02

In 2023, our fastest female time was 47:11 and 10th fastest female ran 56:46 showing remarkable improvement across our quickest ladies.

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.

Top 10 Fastest Male

1. Jacob Tasker – 1:08:11 (PB and new club record)
2. Aled Jenkins – 1:11:59 (PB)
3. Angelo Doria – 1:14:40 (PB)
4. Paul Teesdale – 1:20:43 (PB)
5. John Burridge – 1:23:08 (PB)
6. Aled Hughes – 1:24:04 (PB)
7. Connor Panting – 1:24:37 (PB)
8. Scott Gray – 1:25:38 (PB)
9. Gareth Richards – 1:26:08
10. Toby Kearns – 1:28:23 (PB)

With Tom Mahoney also going sub 90 minutes, we had a record number of members running under 1 hour 30 minutes.

Top 10 fastest female

1. Willow Hughes – 1:38:31 (PB)
2. Katie Plimmer – 1:42:15 (PB)
3. Carys Bissmire – 1:45:11 (PB)
4. Claire Dunbar-Bowen – 1:51:30
5. Arwen Rees – 1:54:13 (PB)
6. Marina Konstantinova – 1:57:27 (PB)
7. Carol Bartle – 1:57:48
8. Alison Allen – 2:00:43
9. Freya Allen – 2:00:58
10. Deb Edwards – 2:02:46

Marathon

OPR members ran in 19 different marathons this year with 75 finishes and 24 PB’s. There’s a dedicated section to Carl Walsh’s adventures later in the blog. Some other highlights this year include Aled Jenkins running a club record 2:30:40 at London Marathon, Niki Puleio being selected to run for Wales at the Chester Marathon and a sub 3 hour debut marathon for Nico. On the female side, Marina Konstantinova ran the Riga Marathon and then beat that time at Eryri, Katie Plimmer ran a female club record course time at Eryri, whilst Shelley Evans completed the Tenby Marathon as the final event of the Long Course Weekend.

Aside from those already mentioned, there were PB’s for Gareth Richards at the Great Welsh Marathon, Martin Beard and Jo Rowling at London, whilst Kaye Pedler, Nicola Veasey and Rya Davies got PB times at Newport.

Our biggest marathon of the year was Marathon Eryri (Snowdon) with 15 runners where Gareth Richards was our first runner with a 3:24. Aled Jenkins ran 3:30 after cycling from home to the race the day before. Jo Jenkins knocked over 35 minutes off her previous best time on the course with this being her 4th Marathon Eryri. Leanne Khan ran her debut marathon at Snowdonia.

A close second for biggest marathon of the year was Valencia where we had 14 runners. Scott Gray ran an outstanding 3:01:15 whilst there were PB’s for Connor Panting, Wayne Hayhurst, Dylan Panting, John Burridge, Tom Mahoney and Josh Parry. Gareth Richards ran sub 4 hours less than a month after being hospitalised due a fall resulting in broken ribs, a broken wrist and a glued head!

Aside from London, we also had Danny Ridley, Claire Dunbar-Bowen and Carl Walsh at Chicago which is another of the Marathon Majors. Aled Hughes also headed to America completing the LA Marathon. The quirkiest marathon of the year has to go to the Green Mile Prison Marathon that Chris Pratt completed which included less than a mile loop on repeat around a former prison including hundreds of steps.

Top 10 fastest Male

1. Aled Jenkins – 2:30:40 (PB and new club record)
2. Angelo Nico Doria – 2:46:40 (PB) – also ran 2:56:59
3. Niki Puleio – 2:56:26 – also ran 3:00:38
4. Scott Gray – 3:01:15 (PB)
5. Aled Hughes – 3:03:18 – also ran 3:07 and 3:24
6. Paul Smith – 3:08:02
7. Gareth Richards – 3:10:30 (PB and age category club record) – also ran 3:11 and 3:24
8. Connor Panting – 3:12:43 (PB)
9. Wayne Hayhurst – 3:14:19 (PB)
10. Dai James – 3:15:58

Top 10 fastest Female

1. Claire Dunbar-Bowen – 4:09:48
2. Katie Plimmer – 4:24:27
3. Emma Loyns – 4:28:24
4. Sarah Davies – 4:35:29
5. Rya Davies – 4:48:58
6. Kaye Pedler – 4:48:58
7. Nicola Veasey – 4:48:58
8. Marina Konstantinova – 4:49:00
9. Fiona Drysdale – 4:59:19
10. Jo Jenkins – 5:05:39

Ultras / Challenges / Crazy Feats of Endurance

From 26.2 miles to 100 miles – although there were less total marathon and ultra finishes this year, there were still some exceptional feats of endurance this year with many taking on multiple long distance challenges.

I have to start with Carl Walsh who ran 4 marathons and 9 ultra marathons this year to add to his 100+ marathon/ultra events. Carl set himself more challenges this year starting off with completing his quest to run a marathon on all 7 continents. Only 1,034 people had achieved this at the time Carl completed that challenge. The final continent involved flying to the most southernly city in the world in Argentina and then getting ship to the Antarctica Circle to run the marathon with some penguin and whale spotting along the way. Next up was a marathon on Everest with fellow club member Danny Ridley. This involved 12 days of hiking and acclimatising to the altitude with them reaching over 18,000 feet at one point before even running the marathon itself. During 2024, Carl ran his 50th ultra and is now up to 115 marathons or ultras overall.

In August 2024, Kevin Raymond took on one of the toughest multi-day running events in the world with the Dragons Back race. 236 miles from north Wales to south Wales over mountainous off road terrain with 54,000 feet of elevation (not far off climbing Everest from sea level… twice!) over the course of 6 days. Kevin battled his way through 50k of the most challenging mountains and terrain that Wales has to offer on Day 1 and then another 59k on Day 2 but was unfortunately timed out. However, this wasn’t the end and Kevin was able to continue on the ‘Hatchling’ event which involves still running at least part of every days course for the remainder of the race. Over the 6 days, Kevin completed around 146 miles with over 43,000 feet of elevation and a total time of 56 hours and 26 minutes.

It was a mixed year for Gareth Richards who was aiming to become the first member to complete a 100 mile ultra in under 24 hours with the Dragon 100 being the target. He took on the Pembrokeshire 100 for the first time but injured his ankle within the first 12 miles. Incredibly he still finished the race which included 17,000 feet of elevation in 26 hours and was 6th overall. Unfortunately, despite best efforts and starting the Dragon 100 just 7 weeks after the Pembrokeshire 100, Gareth had to pull out after around a marathon distance due to ongoing ankle issue.

We had a couple of debut ultra finishers this year with Ashley Howells completing his first ultra at the St Illtyds 50K Ultra and Alexis Barrett at the HOWUM 30 miler. Leanne Parsons ran her furthest ultra and the furthest of any of our female members this year with the Dragon 50 miler. Dai James continued his ultra journey with the VOGUM where he was 4th overall on the 40 mile course from Porthcawl to Cardiff, completed the Dragon 50 on largely the same course but starting from Kenfig, plus completed the RIDUM 31 mile ultra.

In October 2024, I set myself a challenge of running 500 kilometers (310 miles) during the month in memory of colleague who passed away a few weeks earlier. I set myself the challenge to raise awareness of mental health issues as well raise funds for a charity he had supported. What started out as a plan to have at least 5 or 6 rest days and hopefully hit the target on the final day escalated into me running every day during October and ending up finishing on 658 kilometers (408.8 miles) which works out at an average of a Half Marathon every day for the 31 days. My shortest day was 10K (6.2 miles) whilst my longest was Marathon Eryri towards the end of the month at 42K (26.2 miles).

Longest distances achieved in ultra’s in 2024

1. Kevin Raymond – 146 miles over 6 days – Dragons Back

2. Gareth Richards – 100 miles – Pembrokeshire 100

3-4. Dai James / Leanne Parsons – 50 miles – Dragon 50

5. Carl Walsh – 48 miles – Brecon to Cardiff Extreme version

6. Dai James – 40 miles – VOGUM

7. Carl Walsh – 32 miles – Beast of Llangattock

8-9. Carl Walsh / Emma Loyns – 32 miles – Vale Ultra

10. Everyone else – Alexis Barrett / Paul Barrett / Danny Ridley / Ashley Howells – 30-31 miles – various ultras

Race and overall totals

Total number of events in 2024 (parkruns plus races)

1. Gareth Jenkins 94
2. Dawn Hopkins 84
3. Nick Harris 82
4. Sarah Davies 76
5. Jamie Verran 75
6. Debbie Bennion 73
7. Kris Denholm 72
8. Chris Pratt 70
9. Linda Harris 70
10. Jo Jenkins 69

It’s the 5th time I’ve topped the list but the first time since 2018. After topping the standings in 2023, After topping the standing last year, Aled Hughes wasn’t in the top 20 this year due to other commitments. 26 members did 50 events or more during 2024 which is a slight drop on 2023 when we had 30.

Most Races (not including parkruns)

1. Gareth Jenkins 48
2. Ria Ross 40
3. Caryn Hicks 39
4. Dawn Hopkins 32
5. Jo Jenkins 31
6. Mark Worrall 31
7. Debbie Bennion 30
8. Nick Harris 29
9. Laura Worrall 29
10. Katie Plimmer 29

Overall most events

1. Gareth Jenkins 881
2. Nick Harris 827
3. Chris Pratt 643
4. Aled Hughes 639
5. Dai Kembo 553
6. Dawn Hopkins 515
7. David Sheard 514
8. Kris Denholm 495
9. Jo Jenkins 448
10. Chris Roberts 435

A quiet year for Aled race-wise meant that Chris Pratt returned to 3rd in the standings after Aled took that spot from him during 2023. Dawn Hopkins overtook David Sheard into 6th spot whilst Jo Jenkins overtook Chris Roberts into 9th place. Jo is actually the most recent member to join out of the top 10 having been in the club 8 years compared to 9-12 years for the rest. Our top 10 have run 5,950 events between them. We also have 86 members that have run at least 100 events with the club.

Overall most races (not including parkruns)

1. Gareth Jenkins 388
2. Nick Harris 325
3. Aled Hughes 250
4. Chris Pratt 242
5. Dawn Hopkins 242
6. Denise Bradley 207
7. Mark Worrall 192
8. Sharon Pritchard 191
9. Debbie Bennion 189
10. Jo Jenkins 175

Cross Country

The club continues to participate in both the West Glamorgan League and the Gwent League with separate male and female teams contesting. At the end of the 23-24 West Glam season, our men’s team maintained their place in the top division with a 5th place finish whilst our ladies were 4th in division 2. Due to the postponement of the Pembrey fixture of the West Glam league, there’s only been one fixture so far in the 24/25 season where we had a decent turnout at Aberavon Beach despite it being the same weekend as Marathon Eryri.

Numbers have remained low in the Gwent League with the early afternoon Saturday start times maybe not quite fitting into peoples schedules. Gareth Battle and I were the only runners at Margam earlier this year whilst a last minute appearance from Chris Pratt avoided it being the same two again in Pembrey. We were joined by Ben Williams for the Llandaff fixture but unfortunately he had to pull out during the race leaving the two Gareth’s as the only male OPR members on the results. Our women have faired much better in participation with 5 runners at both Pembrey and Llandaff so far this season.

As a result of some great performances in Pembrey (and a couple of last minutes spots needing filling) then we had 5 OPR members representing South Wales at the Inter-Regional Welsh Championships. Bethan Moor and Jo Jenkins ran in the ladies race whilst I ran in the men’s event. Angelo Doria also received a call up for the Under 20’s men’s team whilst Arwen Rees ran in the Under 20’s women’s race.

Jules Esmond did the most cross country league events notching up 5 events this year whilst I also did 5 cross country events made up of 3 Gwent, 1 West Glam plus the Inter-Regionals.

Bridgend County Running League (BCRL)

150 different members ran at least one BCRL event (down from 153 in 2023). We had 634 finishes (up from 592 in 2023) across the 7 events averaging 90 per fixture (up from 85 in 2023). 28 members ran every fixture (up from 19 in 2023) with a few more only missing one because they volunteered at our own event.

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 a few new faces this year including Paul Teesdale, Keiron Burridge and Daniel Richards regularly in our top 10. The ladies had tough competition from Bridgend and Porthcawl who had 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. Bethan Moor was our first female in the first 6 events whilst Katie Plimmer was our first female in the final event. Our highest female position overall was 6th which bizarrely our ladies finished in on 5 of the 7 races – Bethan was 6th female overall on four occasions and then Katie was 6th female overall in the final event. Our regulars for the past couple of years, Willow Hughes, Carys Cronin, Claire Dunbar-Bowen, Sarah Davies were joined by the ever improving Arwen Rees and new names to BCRL with us, Gemma Richards and Marina Konstantinova as 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. Apart from Kenfig where we ‘only’ had 66 members running, our attendances were brilliant ranging from 88 at Rest Bay to a high of 101 at Sandy Bowl for the other events.

In terms of the Team results, Bridgend were out in force this year after having to play runners up to us in the past two years having dominated in the pre-COVID years. Bridgend won every fixture with our club 2nd in 6 events and 3rd in 1 event. We finished 2nd overall and ran Bridgend close in a few fixtures.

Our record of having the overall individual winner for 14 BCRL fixtures in a row came to an end at the start of the season at Sandy Bowl although Jake did win the remaining 6 fixtures so the streak is well under way again.

At the end of season presentation, our members walked away with a haul of age category trophies. Arwen Rees and Jake Tasker won their age categories, Freya Allen, Bethan Moor, Claire DB, Denise Bradley and Niki Puleio finishing second in their age categories, and Katie Plimmer finishing third in hers.

Another incredible season.  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.

Club Trail Championship

This year saw the return of the club trail championship with a mixture of local parkruns, XC fixtures and a variety of races across South Wales and beyond. Some great competition throughout the series with the top 3 male and female places still being decided right up to the final month and could have potentially changed as late as the 28th December. I won’t spoil the surprise and put the final standings as these will be presented at the presentation night on the 1st March.

Club Training in 2024

The club continues to offer a variety of training sessions which continue to grow in numbers. On Monday’s we have our junior sessions which have continued to be a great success with the expansion of age groups and multiple members involved in the sessions. Tuesdays have continued with a mixture of effort and mile sessions. Wednesdays are now regularly combined sessions with what was Flyers and regular club training coming together often for effort sessions. We also have track once 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 trail Sundays which are regularly providing something different. We’ve had a number of new Lirfs this year alongside our long standing cohort who keep us motivated and active throughout the year.

At the start of the year we had our latest Zero to Hero group. It was great to see so many Lirfs and other club members coming along to support these sessions. For the first time we had the graduation at Aberfields parkrun rather than Porthcawl which a huge turnout of Z2H graduates and longer standing members who made up most of the volunteering roles including lots of pacers on the day.

Other club activities in 2024

Presentation night saw a record breaking night for Jake Tasker as he took away 5 awards including the top prize of being voted Runners Runner. Jake became only the second member to win Runners Runner for a second time with the other being Nick Harris. The top 3 for the Runners Runner vote was rounded out by Jamie Verran after his incredible parkrun tourism records the previous year and former Runners Runner, Tammie Baker after another brilliant year of running. Despite the trophy haul for Jake, there were 29 different winners on the night with Ria Ross and Claire DB the only others to take away more than one award.

After being incredibly disappointed not have been accepted for this years Welsh Castles Relay, we were given a chance to participate at the eleventh hour. Massive kudos to Dawn Hopkins, Dai Kembo, Nicky Bennett and Niki Puleio who managed to sort out the tricky logistics of travel, accommodation and payments whilst I spent a couple of days trying to convince 20 people to commit to running a huge event at short notice. Somehow it all worked out. It was also brilliant to have 5 ladies in the team this year including Bethan starting us off on the first leg and Jo Jenkins finishing the event on stage 20. An incredible weekend of running with all 20 runners finishing within the cut off times and doing the club and themselves proud. It was just the one team for Rack Raid this year but it was again a fantastic performance by our runners. Well done to Bethan Moor, Sian Price, Sarah Davies, Jamie Verran and Niki Puleio who ran both Rack Raid and Welsh Castles just one week apart.

In October we saw the return of the Snowdonia Marathon weekend with over 20 OPR members and supporters travelling up to the event. Phoenix corner was back with plenty of reinforcements after taking off in the wind a couple of years ago! A huge thanks to Jo Pratt for organising the weekend and to her and Emily Harris for their hours spent setting up and manning Phoenix corner again. Also a special mention for Alun Wylde and family who were set up with their extensive sweet treats station at the Half Way point.

This year saw the introduction of the Team Competition. Liz Davis and Fiona Evans came up with the idea which saw members put their names forward to be involved and then get randomly assigned a team mate for the year. The idea was that the team mates would encourage and support each other to attend training sessions, BCRL events, XC, parkruns and volunteer as set out in the monthly challenges that Liz and Fiona posted. There was even fancy dress involved for one parkrun. It almost certainly had an effect on the number of different people and amount that members volunteered this year as well as bringing members together who otherwise may not have had much contact with each other. I think the verdict is that it has been a resounding success and will hopefully see even more involved in 2025 if Liz and Fiona choose to run it again.

Our X (Twitter), Instagram and Facebook pages continue to keep members up to date whilst this year we’ve seen the introduction of Spond for training, races and other information to be shared. I’ve continued the monthly 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 38,000 results.

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

On Monday 20th August 2012, around a dozen of us met in the Berwyn Centre in Nantymoel to discuss setting up a club in the Ogmore Valley and our club was formed.

To celebrate our 12 year anniversary I thought we’d have a look at the incredible stats that we have accumulated over that time.

36,404 results have been recorded from 602 different members (past and present) from 5,049 events. In total the club has been represented at 1,211 different events.

Longest Standing Members (based on first event if joining date not known)

• Gareth Jenkins / Aled Hughes / Helen Griffiths / John Burridge – August 2012
• Nick Harris – May 2013
• Steven Clatworthy – Oct 2013
• Dai Kembery / Denise Bradley – Mar 2013
• Richard Lowcock James – May 2014
• Kevin Raymond – June 2014
• Fiona Evans – Sept 2014
• Chris Pratt – Oct 2014
• Liz Davis – Nov 2014
• Alica Thomas / Chris Roberts – Jan 2015
• Dawn Hopkins / Jayne Kembery – April 2015

Aled Hughes, John Burridge Helen Griffiths and I attended that first meeting and are the only four ‘founding members’ who are still currently members of the club.

You may be wondering who Steven Clatworthy is – amazingly despite not attending any club sessions or running specifically for OPR in the last 9-10 years, he continues to renew his membership every year to support a local club.

It’s interesting how many of those listed play significant roles in the club with 3 of the 4 captaincy group, our Chair, two members who have been instrumental in running our juniors section since it’s inception to current day, and several committee members included. We do always welcome anyone to apply for the positions or volunteer in any capacity whether you are a new member or been with us for 10+ years.

Most Events Records

Total events top 10 (races and parkruns combined)

1. Gareth Jenkins 848
2. Nick Harris 797
3. Chris Pratt 620
4. Aled Hughes 616
5. David Kembery 524
6. David Sheard 497
7. Dawn Hopkins 484
8. Kris Denholm 470
9. Jo Jenkins 421
10. Chris Roberts 420

Since last years post, Chris Pratt has overtaken Aled into 3rd place after the two had swapped places last year. Dawn has overtaken Kris Denholm into 7th overall and is our highest placed female member. Jo Jenkins has recently overtaken Chris Roberts into 9th overall and is the only member of the top 10 to have been a member for less than 8 years.

Total events top 10 (races only)

1. Gareth Jenkins 372
2. Nick Harris 316
3. Aled Hughes 245
4. Chris Pratt 233
5. Dawn Hopkins 230
6. Denise Bradley 200
7. Sharon Pritchard 181
8. Mark Worrall 180
9. Debbie Bennion 178
10. David Sheard 166

After Dawn, Denise, Sharon and Debbie our next top females for number of races are Jo Jenkins (162) and Fiona Drysdale (151)

Most events in a single year (parkruns plus races)

1. Nick Harris 125 in 2019 – also set the record for most races that year with 73
2. Aled Hughes 116 in 2019 – became the first member to run all 55 available parkruns
3. Christie Coleman 108 in 2016
4. Gareth Jenkins 101 in 2015
5. Gareth Jenkins 100 in 2019
6. Dawn Hopkins 95 in 2022
7. Aled Hughes 94 in 2022
8. Gareth Jenkins 93 in 2016
9. Aled Hughes 90 in 2023
10. Dawn Hopkins 89 in 2019 / Sarah Davies 89 in 2022

I am currently leading the way so far this year and could be on course to have a fourth entry in this top 10 when it’s refreshed next year. Just missing out on this list are Jo Jenkins, Sharon Pritchard and Debbie Bennion who did 88, 86 and 85 events respectively in 2019.

Longest race distances run

The 100 mile club (in date order)

1. Nick Harris 100 miles – Pembrokeshire Coastal Ultra – May 2017
2. Jamie Vanstone 100 miles – Pembrokeshire Coastal Ultra – May 2017
3. Nick Harris 100 miles – Dragon 100 – May 2019 (first member to run two 100 milers)
4. Steven James 100 miles – London to Battle 1066 Ultra – July 2019
5. Steven James 100 miles – Dragon 100 – September 2019
6. Elizabeth Sim 100 miles – Dragon 100 – September 2019 (first female member to run 100)
7. Gareth Jenkins 100 miles – Centaur 100 – June 2022
8. Gareth Richards 100 miles – Dragon 100 – July 2022
9. Gareth Jenkins 100 miles – Dragon 100 – July 2023
10. Gareth Richards 100 miles – Dragon 100 – July 2023
11. Emma Loyns 100 miles – Dragon 100 – July 2023
12. Angharad Hinam 100 miles – Dragon 100 – July 2023
13. Gareth Richards 100 miles – Pembrokeshire Coastal Ultra – May 2024 (first to run three)

Next top 10 longest

1. Gareth Jenkins – 88 miles – 24 hour charity event – Feb 2023
2. Gareth Jenkins – 80 miles – Conquer 24 – June 2022
3. Gareth Jenkins – 77 miles – Escape from Meriden – Nov 2022
4. Wayne Hayhurst – 62 miles – London to Brighton 100K – Apr 2017
5. Fiona Evans – 62 miles – Race to the Stones 100K – Aug 2021
6. Denise Bradley – 62 miles – Race to the Stones 100K – Aug 2021
7. Simon Poole – 62 miles – Race to the Stones 100K – Aug 2023
8. Melanie Thomas – 62 miles – Race to the Stones 100K – Aug 2023 (over 2 days)
9. Rhiain Casseldine-Forman – 62 miles – Race to the Stones 100K – Aug 2023 (over 2 days)
10. Anneliese Loveluck – 60 miles – Dare Valley 12 hour – Sept 2019

The 50(ish) mile club

1. Gareth Jenkins – 53 miles – Loop-a-thon – Sept 2023
2. Steven James – 52 miles – Race to the King – June 2019
3. Carl Walsh – 52 miles – Race to the King – June 2021
4. Denise Bradley – 52 miles – Race to the Tower – June 2022
5. Simon Harrison – 52 miles – Race to the Tower – July 2018
6. Steven James – 52 miles – Race to the Tower – July 2018
7. Emma Loyns – 50 miles – EDDUM – Aug 2022
8. Gareth Jenkins – 50 miles – Loop-a-thon – Aug 2022
9. Denise Bradley – 50 miles – 24 hour charity event – Feb 2023
10. Dragon 50 – Gareth Jenkins, Dai James, Leanne Parsons
11. Gower 50 – Gareth Richards (4 times), Kris Denholm (3 times), Nick Harris (3 times), Neil Jones, Tim Phillips, Aled Hughes, Brian Cotton, Liz Sim, Simon Harrison, Mark Worrall

If virtual events were counted then Steven James would make the list again with 84 miles for the Last Runner Standing event with Kris Denholm and myself completing 72 miles whilst I also did two other 50+ milers as part of virtual challenges.

Most number of Ultra’s (50 miles+) completed (official events only)

1. Gareth Jenkins 8 (11 including virtual)
2. Gareth Richards 7
3. Nick Harris 5
4. Steven James 4 (5 including virtual)
5. Kris Denholm 3 (4 including virtual)
6. Denise Bradley 3

Most number of Ultra’s completed (official events only)

• Carl Walsh 22 (much higher with those done before joining the club)
• Kris Denholm / Gareth Richards 21
• Emma Loyns 15 (couple more since leaving the club)
• Steven James 13 (much higher since leaving the club including 200+ milers)
• Nick Harris 12
• Gareth Jenkins 12
• Liz Sim 9 (much higher with those done whilst not a member)
• Wayne Hayhurst 8
• Jamie Vanstone / Simon Harrison / Chris Pratt 7

93 members have run a ultra with the club but interestingly only 42 of those are current members. That still means that around 20% of our current total membership have run an ultra. 18 of those have run more than 1 ultra.

Most number of Marathons completed (official events only)

1. Chris Pratt 40
2. Carl Walsh 30 (over 100 marathons or ultras including those before joining us)
3. Nick Harris 19
4. Gareth Richards 18
5. Emma Loyns 18
6. Kris Denholm 17
7. Wayne Hayhurst 17
8. Niki Puleio 15
9. Liz Sim 15
10. David Kembery 13

89 current members have run a marathon with the club meaning around 34% of our current total membership have run a marathon. 67 of those have run more than 1 marathon.

Most number of Half Marathons completed (official events only)

1. Gareth Jenkins 73
2. Chris Pratt 34
3. Nick Harris 31
4. Dawn Hopkins 30
5. Denise Bradley 29
6. Wayne Hayhurst 29
7. Mark Worrall 27
8. David Kembery 26
9. Sharon Pritchard 26
10. Liz Davis / Debbie Bennion 25

Interestingly these figures haven’t changed massively since last year which maybe indicates a preference for longer or shorter events for some of our most regular race entrants. 152 current members (around two-thirds of our total membership) have run a Half Marathon with the club. 131 of those have run more than one, and incredibly 49 members have run 10 Half Marathons or more with the club.

Most number of 10Ks completed (official events only)

1. Sharon Pritchard 57
2. Debbie Bennion 55
3. Dawn Hopkins 54
4. Gareth Jenkins 53
5. Aled Hughes 37
6. Nick Harris 37
7. Mark Worrall 36
8. Niki Puleio 32
9. Denise Bradley 30
10. Shawn Cullen / Helen Griffiths 29

174 current members have completed a 10K with the club which is around 75% of our membership.

Number of event finishes by distance

1. 5K / parkrun – 23,581
2. Other distances – 5,632
3. 10K – 3,073
4. Half Marathon – 2,315
5. Marathon – 731
6. 5 mile – 489
7. Ultra – 308
8. 10 mile – 267

Biggest events by number of members finishing

1. Cardiff Half Marathon 2019 – 116 finishers
2. Ogmore Castle BCRL 2019 – 114
3. Merthyr Mawr BCRL 2023 – 102
4. Sandy Bowl BCRL 2024 – 101
5. Kenfig Sands BCRL 2022 – 98
6. Pencoed BCRL 2024 – 97
7. Porthcawl 10K 2019 – 97
8. Sandy Bowl 2023 – 95
9. Planka BCRL 2022 – 93
10. Merthyr Mawr Lane 5K BCRL race 2017 – 92
11. Cardiff Half Marathon 2016 – 92
12. Llanilid Loop BRCL race 2019 – 92
13. Ogmore Castle BCRL race 2022 – 92
14. Cardiff Half Marathon 2018 – 91
15. Cardiff Half Marathon 2017 – 90
16. Ogmore Castle BCRL race 2024 – 90
17. Pencoed BCRL 2022 – 90
18. Sandy Bowl BCRL 2022 – 90
19. Pencoed BCRL 2023 – 89
20. Tuska Beach / Rest Bay BCRL 2024 – 87

In total there have been 63 races where we’ve had 50 or more members finishing. 36 of those are BCRL races with Cardiff Half also making a frequent appearance. Our biggest Marathon attendance was at Snowdonia in 2019 when we had 45 finishers.

We’ve also had 65 finishers at Porthcawl parkrun on 2 occasions – way back on Christmas Eve 2016, and then again in September 2019 which coincided with a Zero to Hero graduation. On the latter date, we also had a record 85 members finishing a parkrun on the same morning and more than 100 members attending a parkrun when including those that volunteered or supported.

Most popular races by number of times club has been represented (excluding parkruns)

1. Aberavon / Run4All 5K series – 18*
2. SSAFA 5K (Cardiff) series – 18
3. Swansea Bay (Paul Popham) 5K series – 14
4. Cardiff Half Marathon (including World Half) – 11*
5. Llanelli Half Marathon – 10*
6. Merthyr Mawr Pudding Run – 10*
7. Swansea 10K – 10*
8. Cardiff / CDF 10K – 9*
9. Caerphilly 10K – 9*
10. London Marathon – 9*

*club has been represented in every one of these events since we formed or the series stared. Aberavon / R4A series could arguably be 26 as we’ve also done all 8 Santa 5K’s there as well.

Club records

Male

• 5K / parkrun: Jacob Tasker – SSAFA 5K – July 2024 – 14:53
• 10K: Jacob Tasker – Magor 10K – July 2024 – 30:57
• Half Marathon: Jacob Tasker – Swansea Half Marathon – June 2024 – 01:08:11
• Marathon: Aled Jenkins – London Marathon – April 2024 – 02:30:40

Female

• 5K / parkrun: Emma Morris – Swansea Bay parkrun – Sept 2021 – 19:52
• 10K: Anneliese Loveluck – Magor 10K – July 2018 – 41:26
• Half Marathon: Anneliese Loveluck – Merthyr Half Marathon – Mar 2019 – 01:32:33
• Marathon: Anneliese Loveluck – Great Welsh Marathon – Apr 2019 – 03:13:56

Current Female members

• 5K / parkrun: Sian Price – Porthcawl parkrun – Nov 2016 – 21:14
• 10K: Sian Price – Porthcawl 10K – July 2022 – 42:38
• Half Marathon: Sian Price – Cardiff Half Marathon – Oct 2022 – 01:34:34
• Marathon: Claire Dunbar-Bowen – London Marathon – Apr 2023 – 03:46:07

Age Category Records (total number of age category club records)

1. Niki Puleio – 8
2. Denise Bradley – 7
3. Gareth Richards – 7
4. Sian Price – 7
5. Neil Jones – 7
6. Kevin Raymond – 6
7. Anneliese Loveluck – 5

Age category records are split into 5 year increments for 5K, 5 miles, 10K, 10 miles, Half Marathon and Marathon. Niki and Denise actually hold records in 3 different age categories. Denise definitely has the opportunity to increase her numbers and would be almost guaranteed the 5 mile, 10K, 10 mile and Marathon in her current age category which could out her on over 10 age category records.

Presentation Nights

Runners Runner Winners Roll of Honour

1. 2013 – Gareth Jenkins
2. 2014 – Nick Harris
3. 2015 – Chris Pratt
4. 2016 – Christie Coleman
5. 2017 – Niki Puleio
6. 2018 – Tammie Baker
7. 2019 – Nick Harris (first member to win it twice)
8. 2020 – Kris Denholm
9. 2021 – Jacob Tasker
10. 2022 – Laura Worrall
11. 2023 – Jacob Tasker

Most main awards won

This includes Runners Runner, Best in age category, Club Championship winners, Most Improved, Best Newcomer, Zero to Hero, Chairman’s Award, Spirit of the Phoenix and Outstanding Achievement. The number represents the number of times they have won in total and in brackets are the years they won one or more prizes.

1. Jake Tasker 11 (2021, 2022, 2023)
2. Denise Bradley 10 (2014, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2023)
3. Gareth Richards 8 (2017, 2020, 2022, 2023)
4. Claire Dunbar-Bowen 8 (2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023)
5. Niki Puleio 7 (2017, 2019, 2021, 2022)
6. Emma Loyns 6 (2018, 2019, 2022, 2023)
7. Neil Jones 6 (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018)
8. Keith Coleman 5 (2016, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023)
9. Nick Harris 5 (2013, 2014, 2015, 2019)
10. Gareth Jenkins, Aled Hughes, Sarah Davies 4

96 different members have received awards over the 11 presentation nights.

parkrun specific stats

Like it, loathe it, or just indifferent to it, parkrun is a huge part of our club with over 50% of all results recorded to date being parkrun finishes. We also have a significant amount of parkrun tourists so I thought I’d share some of the crazy stats and challenges below.

Most popular parkruns (number of parkrundays with at least one club finisher)

1. Porthcawl 504
2. Maesteg 277
3. Pontypridd 158
4. Swansea Bay 144
5. Cardiff 119
6. Grangemoor 99
7. Gnoll 90
8. Barry Island 89
9. Newport 75
10. Llanelli Coast / Sandy Water 74

There have been 508 events at Porthcawl meaning there have only been 4 parkruns at Porthcawl with no members of the club finishing – all of these were in 2013 and the last time we had no recorded results at Porthcawl was 12th October 2013. Niki Puleio, Chris Pratt and David Sheard were all in attendance that day but weren’t members at that point. I’ll take the blame as I was our only member who was parkrunning that day but went to Pontypridd. Nevertheless, it does mean we’ve been represented at the last 428 Porthcawl parkruns that have gone ahead. At Maesteg we have 100% record with at least 1 member at every one of their 277 parkruns so far – there have been a few occasions in the past year that there was only one finisher.

Total number of parkruns Top 10 – ranked by number done with club then numbers in brackets are total parkruns run including those before joining the club

1. Nick Harris 483 (483)
2. Gareth Jenkins 478 (478)
3. Chris Pratt 388 (459)
4. David Kembery 383 (383)
5. Aled Hughes 373 (373)
6. Chris Roberts 348 (376)
7. David Sheard 332 (421)
8. Kris Denholm 331 (409)
9. Jo Jenkins 260 (295)
10. Dawn Hopkins 255 (255)

Nick overtook me to take top spot at the start of this year and is on course to become the first member to reach the 500 club around Christmas this year! I already know of a few I’ll miss so am looking at around Feb/Mar 2025 for mine. Liz Davis, Alison Allen, Niki Puleio and Gareth Davies are the next to reach 250 but all at least 6-9 months away.

When looking at overall numbers including those done before joining club then we also have Peter Harrop (286), Richard Lowcock James (266), Claire Goldsworthy (263), Karl Johnson (257), Saul Harris (254) and Bev Sheard (251).

parkrun milestone clubs

• 250 club – 16 current members (5 have joined this year)
• 100 club (100-249 parkruns) – 53 current members
• 50 club (50-99 parkruns) – 39 current members
• 25 club (25-49 parkruns) – 26 current members

134 members have 25 or more parkruns which is around 60% of our current membership.

Top 10 volunteers (number of different days volunteering – includes volunteering at both the 5K and junior parkruns)

1. Alison Allen 322
2. Greg Allen 298
3. Karl Johnson 257
4. Chris Stanlake 194
5. Rhiannon Whitely 161
6. Mia Allen 152
7. Angela Parry 149
8. Freya Allen 119
9. Sharon Pritchard 114
10. Richard Lowcock James 105

This information isn’t as easy to find so apologies to anyone I’ve missed who would make this list. The numbers will also include volunteer stints done before joining the club. The Allen family dominate the list and could hit 1,000 volunteer credit between them by the time this list is refreshed next year. I suspect we might see a couple of Aberfields regulars pop up on this list next year. Also have to mention some former members – Maria Lalic has 357 volunteer credits, Emma Marshall 318 and Stephne Puddy 315 with many of those whilst a member of the club.

Top 10 parkrun tourists (number of different venues)

1. Karl Johnson 148
2. Dawn Hopkins 140
3. Chris Roberts 136
4. Julie Ransom 125
5. Shawn Cullen 115
6. Gareth Jenkins 108
7. Sarah Davies 100
8. Kris Denholm 92
9. Jo Jenkins 80
10. Chris Stanlake 78

I was the early leader for parkrun tourism and was the first to complete 20 different parkruns back in 2015 and led the way until mid 2017 when Shawn and Julie took over and were in joint top spot for over 4 years and became the first to reach 100 different parkruns. Over the past couple of years, the top spot has been occupied by Chris Roberts and Dawn Hopkins at different points but it’s Karl who is now quite a few clear.

Recently Sarah Davies joined the ‘Cowell’ club by running 100 different parkrun venues becoming the 7th member to do so. Chris Pratt was also one of our early regular tourists and set himself a challenge of running all the Welsh parkruns in 2015 when I believe there were around 15 or 16. Jamie Verran holds multiple club tourism records including an entire calendar year of doing a different parkrun every week (including a couple of extras overseas and Christmas Day / New Years Day).

Most new parkrun venues visited in a calendar year

1. Jamie Verran 55 in 2023
2. Karl Johnson 35 in 2019
3. Dawn Hopkins 30 in 2019
4. Dawn Hopkins 27 in 2022
5. Shawn and Julie 26 in 2019
6. Karl Johnson 25 in 2017
7. Sarah Davies 25 in 2022
8. Toni Howells 25 in 2022
9. Sarah Davies 24 in 2019
10. Paul Barrett / Melanie Thomas 24 in 2023
11. Shawn and Julie 24 in 2018

Jamie’s 2023 total included 32 different Welsh parkruns which is also a club record.

parkrun Alphabeteers (members who have run a parkrun starting with every letter of the alphabet)

Dawn Hopkins was the first to achieve this followed by Sarah Davies. Alexis and Paul Barrett in becoming alphabeteers with Paul completing it in just 68 parkruns overall.

Dawn has since become the first in the club to do the parkrun alphabet TWICE and is well on her way to a third. Whilst a few thousand have done it once, only a couple of hundred of the nine million registered parkrunners have done it three times.

We have around a dozen members who are all just a few letters away from completing the challenge.

‘Gold Obsessive’ parkrunners (members who have run 50 or more parkruns in a calendar year)

1. Gareth Jenkins – on 4 separate years
2. Aled Hughes – on 4 separate years
3. Nick Harris – on 3 seperate years
4. Kris Denholm – on 2 seperate years
5. Jamie Verran – on 1 occasion
6. Brett Bonell – on 1 occasion
7. David Kembery – on 1 occasion

Surprisingly despite being on more than 350 parkruns each, Chris Pratt, David Sheard, Chris Roberts don’t make the list, although all have been just one or two off on a couple of occasions. Aled Hughes, Nick Harris, Jamie Verran, Brett Bonell and Kris Denholm are the only members to have run every parkrun occasion available in the UK in a single year (52 Saturdays plus New Years Day and Christmas Day).

Stopwatch Bingo (collecting finishing times ending in all possible numbers from 00 to 59 seconds)

1. Chris Roberts – completed in 202 parkruns (started before joining club)
2. Aled Hughes – completed in 203 parkruns
3. Richard Lowcock James – completed in 210 parkruns (started before joining club)
4. David Sheard – completed in 214 parkruns (started before joining club)
5. Jo Jenkins – completed in 216 parkrun (started before joining club)
6. Nick Harris – completed in 222 parkruns
7. David Kembery – completed in 256 parkruns
8. Chris Pratt – completed in 258 parkruns
9. Peter Harrop – completed in 260 parkruns
10. Gareth Jenkins – completed in 286 parkruns

Interestingly none of our recent members who have reached 250 parkruns (Claire Goldsworthy, Dawn Hopkins, Saul Harris, Karl Johnson, Bev Sheard) have achieved Stopwatch Bingo yet. However, Kris Denholm has by far the most parkruns without completing this challenge and is on 409 parkruns and still has 1 more to tick off (number 9).

Some other random parkrun stats

Earliest parkrunner – Ann Davies – 23rd February 2008 at Cardiff parkrun – Ann was in the first 13,000 to sign up for parkrun and there are now over 9 million registered worldwide.

Fastest to reach 25 parkruns – Jamie Verran – 24 weeks

Fastest to reach 50 parkruns – Jamie Verran – 47 weeks from 1st to 50th

Fastest to reach 100 parkruns – Jamie Verran – 94 weeks from 1st to 100th

Fastest to reach 250 parkruns – Nick Harris – 274 weeks from 1st to 250th

Longest to reach 100 parkruns – Ann Davies – 564 weeks from 1st to 100th

Longest to reach 250 parkruns – Jo Jenkins – 754 weeks from 1st to 250th

Most different first finishes – Jake Tasker / Jamie Verran – 9

Most International Tourisms – Chris Roberts – 13 – Chris ran 11 parkruns in Australia whilst there over on two separate occasions over Christmas / New Year and has also run parkruns in Denmark and Poland.

Number of different parkruns visited by all members past and present – 425

Number of different parkrun countries visited by all members past and present – 15 (UK, Ireland, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Canada, France, USA, Norway, Australia, Russia, Netherlands, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden)

Longest parkrun streak – Jamie Verran – 129 parkruns

Most runs at Aberfields parkrun – Gareth Jenkins 34

Most runs at Maesteg parkrun – Niki Puleio 136

Most runs at Porthcawl parkrun – Nick Harris and Chris Pratt 335 (David Sheard 334!)

Most parkruns only at one venue (before touring) – Claire Goldsworthy – 245 parkruns at Porthcawl

Other stats

Longest standing chair – Chris Pratt (over 7 years)

Longest standing coach – Aled Hughes

Longest standing committee member – Liz Davis (secretary / general committee)

Longest standing captain – Gareth Jenkins (over 7 years)

Most club records set – Jacob Tasker – 27 (Bettered the 5K record 8 times, 5 miles once, 10K record 4 times, 10 miles twice, HM three times, Marathon once)

Number of current members to have run 100 events (parkruns plus races for the club) – 84

Highest number of events without doing a parkrun – Simon Harrison – 74

Number of people to have recorded a result with the club – 602

And finally….

Number of hours spend collecting these stats over the past 12 years: I don’t want to even think about it but it’s something I enjoy and will continue to do. A huge thanks to Pippa Clark who searches for all the results and without her this level of detail would not be possible. Hopefully if you’ve got this far then you’ve enjoyed reading the stats. There’ll be the usual end of year review which tends to include some of these overall numbers as well. I’ll do a refresh of all the numbers for the 13 year anniversary – until then, happy running.

19th August 2023 – it finally happened – a parkrun in the valley the club was formed. Not only that, a parkrun that starts and finishes where the club did it’s first ever training session almost to the day 11 years earlier. It’s also where our first Couch to 5K sessions took place which included a couple of graduates who are still members to this day.

The less said about the weather for that first parkrun, the better, and it has become a running theme that when Jay is the Run Director that the weather is often bad. Despite the weather, 180 turned up to the inaugural which is still by far the biggest attendance overall. That figure included 52 OPR members running with a further 16 making up the majority of the volunteer team. Jake set a course record of 16:28.

Week 2 saw what is still the second biggest attendance with 128 finishers including 23 OPR members running and 17 OPR volunteers making up a even bigger percentage of the volunteers than the first week. After a few weeks of the hardcore tourists visiting to tick off the latest new event, numbers settled at an average of around 55-65 per week. The average after the first year (which is inflated slightly due to a couple of big weeks) is 67 runners. Occasionally the numbers have been lower when the weather hasn’t been good whilst there’s also been some higher numbers for a couple of special events. One of which was Aberfields being used as the graduation parkrun for our latest Zero to Hero group. We beat our own OPR record attendance at Aberfields with 53 runners on that occasion as well as a record 31 volunteers.

There have been 5 cancellations in the first year resulting in 47 events so far. In those 47 events, 159 different runners with OPR as their club have run 891 times at Aberfields. With 3,148 finishes at Aberfields in total, that means we’ve made up over a quarter of all finishers.

Most runs at Aberfields parkrun

1. Gareth Jenkins 33
2. Aled Hughes 31
3. Jo Jenkins 25
4. Sally Pensom 24
5. Jonathan Matthews 21
6. Adam Pohl 20
7. Nick Harris 20
8. Laura Worrall 19
9. Mark Worrall 18
10. Chris Stanlake / Karen Dando 17

Laura Worrall ran the first 11 Aberfields parkruns and was our early leader for most parkruns there before other commitments ended that run. Nick Harris then took over the baton running at Aberfields 16 times in the first 19 events before going back to regular parkrun tourism. Over a longer period, Jo and I have climbed the ranks with it now being our home parkrun and default if we’re not away. That’s despite having run 370 times at Porthcawl between us before Aberfields started and being around the same distance / travel-time from both events. It’s probably not that surprising that Aled is high on the list given I think he may hold the title for OPR member living closest to a parkrun with the start just 0.5 miles from his front door and the course passing within 500 feet of it.

Worth noting that outside of the club, there are a couple of runners who’ve run Aberfields more times with Andrew Williams and Steve John both on 37 occasions whilst the most (I can find) by a female runner is Lynne Cabble with 32.

Fastest times at Aberfields (Men)

1. Jake Tasker 16:28 – course record (also 16:37 and 16:38 as second and third fastest)
2. Angelo Nico Doria 18:02
3. Aled Hughes 18:53
4. Nicky Bennett 19:00
5. Jamie Verran 19:27
6. John Burridge 19:43
7. Rhodri Thomas 19:46
8. Toby Kearns 19:53
9. Wayne Hayhurst 19:57
10. Daniel Jenkins 20:19

The fastest time apart from Jake is 16:47 from Oliver Williams.

Fastest times at Aberfields (Women)

1. Claire Dunbar-Bowen 23:39
2. Sarah Davies 23:59
3. Katie Plimmer 25:15
4. Marina Konstantinova 25:23
5. Alison Allen 25:39
6. Fiona Drysdale 25:55
7. Arwen Rees 26:19
8. Jo Jenkins 26:23
9. Carol Bartle 26:38
10. Jules Esmond 26:52

The female course record at Aberfields overall is 20:05 by Sally Pugsley from Porthcawl.

First finishers at Aberfields

1. Aled Hughes 6
2. Jake Tasker 3
3. John Burridge 3
4. Jonathan Matthews / Jamie Verran / Dylan Panting / Rhodri Thomas / Adam Kearns 1

Unlike other parkruns, Aberfields don’t really have a regular first finisher with 31 different runners picking up the number one token in the first year. I’m sure Aled would easily be on double figures if he wanted to though.

First female finishes at Aberfields

1. Sarah Davies 2
2. Jo Jenkins / Deborah Edwards / Alison Allen / Arwen Rees 1

Despite being our fastest female at Aberfields and having the club record for most different parkrun female first finishers, Claire Dunbar-Bowen always seems to turn up when other fast ladies are in attendance and has been second female three times, third female once and fourth female once in her 5 runs there.

Volunteering at Aberfields

1. Jay Howells 47
2. Chris Stanlake 41
3. Toni Howells 40
4. Gareth Jenkins 31
5. Judith Howells 30
6. Liz Davis 23
7. Catherine Robinson 16
8. Rhiannon Whiteley 16
9. Claudine Nicholson-Lewis 15
10. Julie Ransom 15
11. Shawn Cullen 15
12. John Burridge 10

Aberfields has had a huge effect on how regular many of members volunteer. The 12 listed above total 291 volunteer credits between them, but there’s also a further 20 current members who’ve volunteered at least once in the first year as well.

Jay has volunteered in some capacity at all 47 events so far. Even when he’s not there on the actual day, he’s normally coordinating the volunteers during the week or still involved during the lead up to the next event as part of his Event Director role. Chris Stanlake is one of the Run Directors and has volunteered in multiple roles including getting a few run counts in as tail walker or park walker. Toni has notched up 40 volunteer credits in various roles. My 31 are all from roles that have meant volunteering and running – First Timers Welcome (3), Pre Event Course Check (1) and Pacing (27). Judith makes it three of the Howells family in the top 5 and is often on barcode scanning or marshalling. Liz Davis and Claudine Nicholson-Lewis have also been regular Run Directors in the first year.

If you haven’t been to Aberfields parkrun yet, 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.

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. 💙