Porthcawl parkrun 300th event special

The club at Porthcawl parkrun

233 different runners are currently listed as Ogmore Phoenix Runners and have completed the course at least once (this does include a few juniors). This is the most of any club. Those 233 runners have completed 5870 Porthcawl parkruns between them.

The inaugural and record attendance growth

Although not all had joined the club at the time, current members who ran at the inaugural Porthcawl parkrun on 13th April 2013 include Kelly Griffiths, David Sheard, Angela Walsh, Chris Pratt, Peter Harrop, Garry Jones, John Burridge and myself.

There were 134 runners in total at the first Porthcawl parkrun and the average for the first year was only around 100. By the end of 2015, there were regularly 200+, then 300+ in 2016 before a huge record attendance of 425 on Christmas Eve that year. The last 4 weeks have saw the attendance record smashed again with 458, 499, 508 and then just missing another record last week with 505.

Most individual Porthcawl parkruns

I believe the record for most Porthcawl parkruns in held by Nigel Thomas (unaffiliated) who has completed a staggering 273 of the 299 Porthcawl parkruns so far. Another one worth mentioning is Michael Davies (Porthcawl Runners) who has run all of his 266 parkruns at Porthcawl despite a serious illness.

As for our runners, our top 10 for most Porthcawl parkruns are…

Nick Harris 229

David Sheard 213

Chris Pratt 207

Gareth Jenkins 196

David Kembery 174

Peter Harrop 157

Chris Roberts 134

Angharad Rees 124

Kris Denholm 112

Liz Davis 109

Claire Goldsworthy, Caerwyn Lewis, Dai Power and Simon Williams have all also completed over 100 Porthcawl parkruns. Of our Porthcawl 100 club, Liz Davis is the most loyal to Porthcawl with 95% of her total parkruns being there. A further 18 members have completed 50-99 Porthcawl parkruns.

Fastest Phoenixes at Porthcawl parkrun

Our fastest listed Porthcawl parkrun time is 18:38 by Niki Puleio, closely followed with a 18:47 from Adrian Pearce and 18:56 from John Burridge. In the sub 20 club at Porthcawl we also have Nick Harris, Steve Loveluck, Aled Hughes, Neil Price, Gareth Richards, Chris Truman, Dai James, Chris Pratt, James Littlewood, Brian Cotton and finally myself with 19:59.

*Worth noting that Neil Jones has run 17:01 at Porthcawl whilst a member of the club but representing Pontyclun. He has also been first finisher on 5 occasions at Porthcawl whilst a member of our club.

Our top 10 fastest females are

Anneliese Loveluck 20:41

Sian Price 21:14

Amy Roberts 21:53

Shelley Smithson 22:34

Claire Dunbar-Bowen 22:55

Josie Bishop 23:05

Kirsty Evans 23:41

Emma Loyns 23:50

Victoria Hillman 23:53

Jo Gamba 24:35

Both Anneliese and Sian have also been first female finishers at Porthcawl. In terms of highest age grade percentages, Anneliese comes out on top again with 79:13% with Adrian Pearce next on 77:28% and Steve Loveluck with 76.97%.

Biggest improvements

Below is a selection of some of the biggest improvements on first Porthcawl parkrun times to current Porthcawl parkrun PB’s…

Claire Taylor 46:38 to 31:21 (33% improvement)

Rhiannon Sian 39:12 to 27:30 (30% improvement)

Dai Power 41:40 to 30:05 (28% improvement)

Chris Pratt 27:22 to 19:54 (27% improvement)

Sian Jenkins 42:43 to 31:42 (26% improvement)

Rhiannon Whiteley 44:13 to 33:40 (24% improvement)

Tammie Clemett 36:12 to 28:38 (21% improvement)

Elaine Nash 51:57 to 41:38 (20% improvement)

Looking through the list, there’s at least another 30-40 runners who’ve knocked up to 10 minutes off their times and have had close to 20% improvements.

Random stats

Biggest variation in fastest and slowest time: David Sheard 22:58 to 55:49

Oldest Porthcawl parkrun PB: Martin Beard 22:34 (27/09/14)

Fastest average parkrun time: Adrian Pearce 19:11 from 6 runs

Fastest average parkrun time (over 100 runs): Simon Williams 21:10 from 102 runs

Fastest average parkrun time (over 200 runs): Nick Harris 22:15 from 229 runs

First current Phoenix member to reach 50 parkruns at Porthcawl: Chris Pratt

First current Phoenix member to reach 100 parkruns at Porthcawl: Chris Pratt

First current Phoenix member to reach 200 parkruns at Porthcawl: Nick Harris

Most parkruns away from Porthcawl even though it’s considered their ‘home parkrun’: Gareth Jenkins 78

Longest gap between Porthcawl parkruns (that I know of): Adrian Pearce 27/07/13 to 14/04/18 (also longest gap between Porthcawl parkrun PB’s)

Volunteering

It seems fitting to end with some stats on the volunteers and the 300 Porthcawl parkruns wouldn’t have been possible without them. We’re very fortunate a Porthcawl to have a super dedicated and experienced core volunteer team – many of which have close links with Welsh Athletics and organise / volunteer at numerous other running events.

One of that core team is a Phoenix. Maria Lalic has volunteered at Porthcawl on 193 seperate occasions!

Unfortunatley parkrun don’t do a breakdown of volunteering at one specific event (that I have access to anyway) so the list below will include some volunteering elsewhere like Maesteg and Bridgend junior parkrun but definitely worth a shout out…

Maria Lalic 193

Emma Marshall 83

Michael Brain 71

Stephne Puddy 61

Peter Harrop 50

Chris Stanlake 49

Chris Roberts 44

Gareth Jenkins 40

Kris Denholm 38

Karl Johnson 35

Well done to everyone who has represented our club at Porthcawl parkrun whether it’s running, volunteering or supporting.