parkruns
The first Saturday in June saw 70 OPR members either run or volunteer at a parkrun. We had some international tourism with Nick, Saul and Linda Harris at Zegerplas parkrun. Nick completed his parkrun alphabet in the process. Dawn Wright and Kate Atkin were at the newest additional to parkrun in Wales at Parc Coed Gwilym. No first finishers this week although Kieron Burridge was second overall at Aberfields and Sarah Davies was 2nd female at the ‘toughest parkrun in Wales’ at Coed Cefn Pwll Du. Leanne Parsons ran a PB at Hove Promenade parkrun in Brighton whilst closer to home, Andrew Davis ran a PB at Porthcawl.
This month saw a chance to get in an extra parkrun if you fancied a trip to the Netherlands which 9 of our members did as part of Johnsons Tours visiting Zuiderpark. Kaye and Melinda completed their second parkrun alphabet in the process.
The second Saturday of the month saw 76 OPR members either run or volunteer at a parkrun. Mostly local tourism this week with only 4 members doing parkrun outside of Wales. Six members headed down to the new parkrun mentioned in the previous week whilst there were big attendances at Maesteg and Porthcawl. We had both the male and female first finishers at Maesteg with Paul Teesdale finishing first overall and Angharad Croot first female.
The third weekend saw a bumper 94 OPR members either run or volunteer at a parkrun. Lots of top 5 finishes with Aled Hughes, Jonathan Matthews and Keiron Burridge 3rd to 5th overall at Aberfields whilst Willow Hughes and Angharad Croot were first and second female at the same event. Katie Plimmer was first female and fourth overall at Coed Cefn Pwll Du with myself 5th overall. Niki Puleio was first overall at Maesteg whilst Bethan Moor was first female and fourth overall. Jamie Verran was second at Parc Coed Gwilym, Thomas Daly was 5th at Porthcawl and Claire Dunbar Bowen was first female at Rogiet. I’m not sure we’ve ever had three first female finishers on one Saturday let alone four. There was a good turnout at Aberfields for Laura Worrall’s 100th parkrun whilst Claire Goldsworthy celebrated her 300th parkrun in Porthcawl.
The final Saturday saw 92 OPR members either run or volunteer at a parkrun. It was another weekend of high finishing positions with Keiron Burridge, Aled Hughes and myself in 2nd, 4th and 5th at Aberfields, Jamie Verran 5th overall at Barry Island, Angharad Croot was first female at Coed Cefn Pwll Du, and Niki Puleio was first overall at Maesteg. Maesteg parkrun saw a higher than usual OPR contingent with Arwen Rees running her 100th parkrun having had to delay it by several weeks due to injury. Tourism-wise we had members at 21 different parkruns including Karen Norman at Illaunmanagh in Ireland and Gary Loo at Prisint 18 parkrun in Malaysia.
Races
The summer 5K’s continued with the second SSAFA 5k of the series where Toby Kearns ‘warmed up’ for his Welsh Castles stage which was a few days later with a 18:41. I ran 20:10 which was my fastest 5K in almost 8 years! Next up was the second of the Swansea Bay (Paul Popham) 5K series where we had 12 runners. Paul Teesdale ran 16:50 to finish 7th overall. Willow Hughes ran 20:40 and ended up with a prize for being second senior lady. I ran 21:00 in what felt like a race-to-far after Rack Raid, SSAFA and Welsh Castles all in the previous 10 days. Sporting the number 1 race bib, another of our in-form ladies, Freya Allen ran 22:30 whilst there were great performances throughout the field.
We had 25 runners at the Barry 10K which returned after a one year absence. Luke Davis was our first finisher in PB of 44:32 followed by Katie Plimmer in 46:20 and Hattie James in 48:32. Alice Jenkins also ran a PB with a 1:10:55 which is a fantastic achievement on what is an undulating course. We also had more than a dozen members taking on the Keeper of the Colliery 10K in Maesteg at the end of the month.
Onto the longer distances and Jade Bazylkiewicz took on the Skyrun Eryri 16K which is is amongst one of the toughest trail races in Wales / UK and finished in just under 3 hours. Unfortunately, whilst we had one member conquering an amazing comeback from injury, caoch Kev Raymond ended up on the injury bench after a fall and suspect broken wrist in one of the longer distances at the same event.
On the same Sunday as Welsh Castles, we had our biggest turnout at a Half Marathon so far this year with 19 members taking on Swansea Half. Emyr Bissmire (on 150+ day running streak at the time of running it) smashed his PB with a 1:25:12. New member Josh Campbell ran an outstanding 1:33:00 whilst the ever improving Katie Plimmer ran a 1:36:48 PB. There were also PB’s for Hattie James (1:40), Chris Whittle (1:48), Marina Konstantinova (1:50), Lee Dunbar-Bowen (1:56) and Deb Edwards (1:59).
We had just the one runner at the latest South Wales Phoenix event ‘Tigers, Lions and Bears’ at Barry Sidlings in Pontypridd. Jo Jenkins headed there (after doing Pontypridd parkrun first of course) with the intention of doing 5 or 6 laps for 16.5 to 19.8 miles but ended up doing 8 to clock up a marathon distance.
Further afield we had Carl Walsh and Danny Ridley doing a marathon in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil! Carl described it in his Facebook post as very humid but with an amazing atmosphere.
We also had a few Ultra Marathons in the month. Doctors orders meant that Melanie Thomas power walked the entire Race to the Kings 50k with fellow OPR member and ultra-buddy Rhiain Casseldine-Foreman. Danny Ridley took on the VOGUM 40 miler from Porthcawl along the coastal path to Cardiff. Gareth Richards was back at the Pembrokeshire 100 miler having finished it the previous year despite an ankle issue from very early on. Despite some niggles again from early on this time round again, Gareth completed the 100 mile course with a staggering 18,000+ feet of elevation in challenging weather on the Welsh Coastal Path in 32 hours and 35 minutes.
BCRL
The third fixture of this seasons BCRL took us to Pencoed for their 5K cross country style course. Despite drizzly conditions, it was still very warm for the run before some of us getting quite cold afterwards. 84 OPR members were in attendance. Paul Teesdale finished 7th overall with Thomas Daly, Toby Kearns, Jamie Verran, Matt Edwards, Gareth Battle, Connor Panting, Rhodri Thomas, James Littlewood and Kieron Burridge making up our top 10 men. Bethan Moor was 5th female overall with Angharad Croot, Freya Allen, Jules Esmond, Marina Konstantinova, Fiona Drysdale, Jo Jenkins, Alison Allen, Gem Richards and Denise Bradley making up our top 10 ladies. We had several members run their first BCRL of this year whilst Rhodri Davies, Tom Evans and Gavin George ran their first BCRL fixture for the club. After just 3 events, 135 different OPR members have run for us in the BCRL this year. We were third in the team scoring on the night and remain third in the overall standings after 3 events.
Rack Raid
This was the clubs 5th time competing at the Rack Raid relays – a 100 mile, 13 stage relay over 1 day. This year, Leanne Parsons kicked off proceedings in her second Rack Raid appearance. Gem Richards was on stage 2 after a call up with less than 24 hours notice and just 8 weeks after giving birth to her second child. For legs 3-5 we had Rack Raid debuts from Marina Konstantinova, Alison Allen and Dai Kembery. Next up and taking on the second longest stage (12.4 miles) was Jamie Verran who along with Aled Hughes, had organised this years team for Rack Raid. Jamie smashed his stage with a 1:28:29 on what was his longest ever race distance. Jo Jenkins became the first OPR member to represent the club for a fourth time at Rack Raid and taking on her 3rd different stage. Emyr Bissmire returned for a second appearance at Rack Raid and took on the longest stage (13.1 miles) with an incredible 1:31:25 over the hilly course which was only a minute off his overall Half Marathon PB.
I became the second OPR member (after my wife) to represent the club for a fourth time at Rack Raid, taking on the same stage as I had done in 2023 which is 10 miles and has over 1,000 feet of elevation. I was delighted (and very surprised) to beat my previous time by almost 5 minutes with a 1:15:45. Chris Pratt returned to Rack Raid for a second time having previously taken on the Half Marathon leg back in 2023 for the second team that we had in that year. Freya Allen was also back for her second Rack Raid appearance having previously run in 2023. Despite taking on the hilly stage 11, Freya ran what would have been a 10K PB during that stage. Liam O’Sullivan was on stage 12 which took in some familiar sights having lived in the area the route took him through – unfortunately the amphitheatre finish was unexpectedly taken away due to issues outside of the organisers control but Liam finished within the cut off time with family and friends there to support. Who to put on the last stage is always tricky – not only do you have to wait around all day but it’s almost all uphill. Chris Richards stepped up for this one having also run this stage previously and had one of the best finish positions of the day. Most of the team headed to the pub at the end to celebrate with a burger / hot dog and a couple of drinks.
Welsh Castles
Back again for our third year in a row of taking on the 209 mile, 20 stage relay from Caernarfon Castle to Cardiff. A big group of runners plus support crew headed up to North Wales early Friday afternoon. Jonathan Matthews kicked off proceedings from Caernarfon Castle in his second Welsh Castles appearance despite only joining the club at the start of last year. Our most experienced Castles veteran, Jason Griffiths returned to make it 3 years out of 3 representing OPR having represented other teams several times before that. Niki Puleio also made it 3 out of 3 and also has the added kudos of taking on mountain stages on each of the 3 years. Our third and final ‘ever-present’ was next up with Rhodri Thomas taking on stage 4 having done stages 2 and 19 previously. Tom Mahoney, Aled Hughes, Dylan Panting and Bethan Moor took on stages 5 to 8 respectively having all represented the club once previously at Castles. We then had a Castles debut for John Batchelor on stage 9 with probably some of the biggest cheers of the whole weekend as he took on ‘the travelator’ finish. John Burridge was also making his Castles debut and smashed the longest stage of the weekend with a 13.1 mile mountain stage to finish off day 1.
Onto Day 2 and a very early start for first time Castles runner Connor Panting on another of the mountain stages. Next up was a second appearance for Keith Coleman before our second female runner of the weekend and first time Castles runner, Angharad Croot, took on stage 13. Paul Teesdale took on the infamous Drovers stage which takes in over 1,600 feet of elevation in less than 11 miles. Toby Kearns took on the second longest stage before Dan Richards took on the final mountain stage of the weekend. After joining the Rack Raid team as a replacement, I was the only runner in the club to end up doing both Rack Raid and Castles as I took on stage 17 in what was my second Castles appearance. Thomas Daly stepped in with just 48 hours to go to take on stage 18 in what was his longest official race. Chris Collin was next up and was running his second stage of the weekend, having run for South Wales Police the day before! Scott Gray was awarded the ‘glory leg’ and brought it home for the team with a new finish in Pontcanna Fields.
It was amazing to have all 20 runners at the finish and the biggest support crew of the 3 years so far. Our captain for the weekend, Dai Kembery presented the t-shirts whilst our chairman, Gregg Allen, gave a speech to cap off an incredible weekend.
In terms of the result, we were well over 2 hours quicker than our previous best year (2023) and finished 28th of out of 61 teams which far exceeded our expectations. It’s fair to say that all 20 runners absolutely smashed it and everyone involved had an amazing weekend. A huge thanks to Dawn Hopkins, Dai Kembery, Nicky Bennett and Niki Puleio who did a big part of the pre-event organising, and to the team of supporters and drivers without whom, such a successful weekend just wouldn’t be possible.