parkruns
The month kicked off with a slightly lower than average 58 members either running or volunteering at parkruns. Not too surprising given the wet and windy conditions coupled with Aberfields being cancelled and those resting up for Porthcawl 10K the next day. The volunteer team at Aberfields deserve a shout out who still headed to the course on Saturday morning in order to help cut back the bushes that had infringed on the course to ensure it would go on in future weeks. We had international tourism with Jakub Griz at Lubin parkrun in Poland where he finished 6 out of just 22 runners. Looking at their page, even though they’ve been going for just over 10 years, 20 odd runners is standard at that parkrun. Jo and I attended Blaise Castle as part of this months trial championship for their 99th event where they were handing out flakes at the end. Our biggest attended parkrun was Porthcawl where Angharad Croot was celebrating her 50th parkrun. Again, weather conditions and Porthcawl 10K the next morning meant that most took it relatively easy but we did have a second place overall with a speedy 19:12 from Jamie Verran who revisited Parc Coed Gwilym as part of his quest to tick on certain event numbers for the Fibonacci Sequence challenge.
What a difference a week makes – from wet and windy conditions the previous week, to a heatwave and 25 degree plus temperatures at 9am! 86 members either ran or volunteered across 19 different parkrun venues. At Aberfields parkrun they have a Wimbledon tennis theme and we also had our first ever female to finish first overall. If anyone is familiar with the YouTube channel ‘Alesha and the Bullet’, it was Alesha who claimed first place overall and I recommend checking out a previous video they did when they visited Aberfields in January 2024. Katie Plimmer, Angharad Croot, Ben Batchelor, Rosie Plimmer and Natasha Pask visited Blaise Castle this week in what was their 100th event – Katie was 3rd female overall in a time that interestingly would have been first female the week before by a couple of minutes. At Porthcawl, Angelo ‘Nico’ Doria celebrated renewing his membership with the club after returning from university with a stunning 16:22 first place finish with 31 OPR members in attendance. Nine OPR members headed off to Aberystwyth on the latest Johnsons Tours trip with Jamie Verran clocking a new parkrun PB of 18:33 to finish first overall – his 10th different venue where he’s finished first overall which is a club record.
The third Saturday of the month saw 88 members ether running or volunteering at a parkrun. Tourism-wise, Fiona Drysdale visited Aviemore parkrun in Scotland, the Batchelor brothers were at Newbury plus plenty of other closer parkruns visited. There were big turnouts at both Maesteg for the 8th anniversary of that parkrun and also a great turnout at Porthcawl where Sharon Pritchard became our latest member to join the 250 run club. By far our fastest parkrunner of the day was Angelo ‘Nico’ Doria with 17:01 at Maesteg parkrun – only 7 other runners have run a faster time in the 8 years of Maesteg parkrun and it also makes Nico our fastest current club member at that venue. It was a particularly speedy day at Maesteg with the top 17 runners all coming in under 22 minutes which is a time that on some weeks would be good enough for top 3. Freya Allen was first female at the Maesteg. Bethan Moor was 2nd female overall at Colby. Well done to Andrew Davis who’s fine form continued with a 23:18 at Porthcawl. There was also a PB for Clare Worthington who has improved her parkrun time from 29:31 to 26:13 this year.
The final Saturday of the month saw a massive 95 members either running of volunteering at a parkrun. 47 of those were at Porthcawl where Chris Pratt became the third member of the club to reach the 500 parkrun club. Thomas Daly was our first member to cross the line with a 18:17 whilst Gareth Richards ran 19:57 just 6 days after the Dragon 100 which I’ll come onto a bit later. Lots of international tourism – Matt and Deb Edwards at Clermont Waterfront parkrun (Florida). Dawn Hopkins hoped on a flight with Johnson’s Tours to run at Father Collins parkrun in Ireland. Claire and Lee Dunbar-Bowen ran at Toyen parkrun in Norway where Lee ran his 100th parkrun and his 50th different venue on his 50th birthday – that’s some impressive lining up of milestones. We also had a 25 parkrun milestone run with Dan Richards at Aberfields.
Races
5K
The summer 5K’s continued with the first of the Aberavon / Run4All events where Lee Dunbar-Bowen ran a 23:34 PB with 12 other OPR members also running that event. A week later it was the final race of the Paul Popham / Swansea Bay series with a PB of 20:29 for Katie Plimmer who was our first member across the line and was also good enough to pick up the prize for 2nd senior female. Katie’s sister Rosie also ran a PB with a 35:30 on a very hot and humid evening on the coast. OPR also got awarded our prize for having the most attendances… in 2024. Last year they forgot the trophy so we received one a year later. We had 13 in attendance for that final event.
There were some exceptionally fast times at the final SSAFA 5K of 2025 series. Angelo ‘Nico’ Doria ran a PB of 15:44 whilst Dan Richards set a new over 40’s club record with a 16:19. There was also a huge PB for Paul Teesdale with a 16:20. Willow Hughes, Toby Kearns and Angharad Croot all came in between 21:02-21:13 with new member Lewis King a minute further back in 22:34. Finally, we had Denise Bradley who’s time of 25:00 won her the South Wales 5K Championship Gold Medal for her age category whilst Nico also won in the U21 category.
10K and Half Marathons
OPR were out in numbers at the Porthcawl 10K with 65 runners plus a number of members volunteering at the event. Paul Teesdale was our first runner across the line whilst Niki Puleio continued his impressive form with a 35:22 PB. There were PB’s throughout the field with the list including Connor Panting, Scott Gray, Freya Allen, Jeff Cadogan, Jules Esmond, John Batchelor, Lewis King, Deb Edwards, Lisa Davies, Clare Worthington, Morgan Plimmer, Rhodri Davies, Bev Sheard, Caryn Hicks and Rosie Plimmer. A special mention for Thomas Daly who turned up late and had to start several pens back but still finished in 39:13 having had to overtake thousands of runners. There was just one other 10K in the month with 7 members taking on the Mic Morris 10K.
Only one Half Marathon in July with Jason Griffiths and Jules Esmond taking on the testing course at the Long Course weekend in Tenby.
Other Races
On the same evening as the final Paul Popham 5K event, we also had 12 runners at Cosmeston Relays. Our fastest team on the night was made up of Toby Kearns, Paul Teesdale and Jonathan Matthews. Amongst the four teams, we also had a speedy all female team with Freya, Angharad and Willow who have a combined age younger a couple of our more experienced members! However, this event isn’t just for the young speedsters. Way back in 2016, we actually had 15 teams with those completing the 2.9 mile course from 16 minutes to 45 minutes. Definitely one to look out for next year and hopefully have a big OPR turnout.
18 members took on the Rabbit Run 12K with Matt Edwards our first member across the line in that distance and Marina Konstantinova our first female across the line. This year also saw the introduction of a 40K option which 6 members took on. The challenging course included all of the 12K option with a rather large detour out on the coastal path before turning inland where we were presented with about 20 styles within a couple of miles! The route included almost 2,000 feet of elevation. In very warm and humid conditions, Katie Plimmer managed to complete the 25 mile course in an impressive 4:06:29 and was 2nd female overall. I finished in 4:33 with Jonathan Matthews finishing just a minute later. Beverley Soles completed the course in 5:34 whilst Chris Pratt and Nick Harris both said they found it a tough day at the office but battled on to complete the course 5:51 and 6:15 respectively. The Rabbit Run events were followed by the annual Bridgend Beer Mile which always makes for an entertaining watch. We had 11 runners out of the 49 in total with Paul Teesdale now the unofficial World Beer Mile Trail Champion – as the organisers believe they may be the only trail Beer Mile event in the world. Niki Puleio came a close second in his heat whilst they teamed up along with Toby Kearns and Jonathan Matthews to win the relay event. Kudos to Nick Harris and Jonathan Matthews who did the Beer Mile after completing the 40K Rabbit Run as well!
Ultra Marathons
Simon Melksham and Leanne Parsons took on the Ham and Lyme 50K in Devon at the start of the month, finishing in 8 hours and 23 minutes. Leanne, our 2024 Female Ultra Runner of the Year has certainly lived up to that title and has already clocked up a marathon and 2 ultras this year.
Another couple of regulars on the ultra-scene, Melanie Thomas and Rhiain Casseldine-Forman completed the Race to the King 50K. After being under doctors orders not to run, Mel was accompanied by Rhiain for a 10+ hour power-walk which is pretty impressive. Our 2023 Female Ultra Runner of the Year, Mel has made a comeback to ultras this year having had a break from them in 2024 with this being her 3rd ultra between 30-40 miles within the space of 13 weeks.
At the Dragon Ultra Marathon races we had yet another of our Ultra Marathon award winners with 2023 Male Ultra Runner of the Year, Gareth Richards taking on the 100 mile event. Looking to avenge a DNF last year and finish what would be an incredible 5th 100 miler, Gareth battled through the course despite an ongoing niggle to finish in 26 hours and 39 minutes. In the 50 mile event we had Jo Jenkins taking on her longest ever distance to date having done 34 miles at the Big Moose Ultra back in April, and Dylan Panting who was almost doubling his longest ever distance of a marathon. Both did incredibly well on the day with Dylan finishing in 11 hours 54 minutes and Jo finishing in 13 hours and 41 minutes. We actually had runners in all three distances with Chris Wintle in the 30 miler. He completed his first ultra with the club in 7 hours and 52 minutes.
BCRL – Kenfig Sands and the ‘World Famous Planka’
We had 72 runners at Fixture 4 of the Bridgend County Running League at Kenfig Sands. In his final BCRL for the club, Nico was first overall in 18:57 with Paul Teesdale and Niki Puleio also in the top 10 with 6th and 10th respectively. Katie Plimmer was 4th overall in the ladies. Great performances by our top 10 male and female finishers coupled with a great turnout meant that we finished second in the club standings on the night which moved us right alongside Porthcawl for second in the overall standings. Nico, Niki, Gareth Battle and Freya Allen were all first in their age categories for this fixture as well.
The fifth fixture of this years BCRL was our turn to host with the Planka being our venue. We had 77 runners for this one but well over 100 members in attendance with huge thanks to those that organised the event and volunteered. A special mention for long-standing member Chris Stanlake who was the race director for the first time with everything running smoothly on the night. James Griffiths was our first runner across the line and second overall. We also had a further 8 in the top 20 with Daniel Richards, Paul Teesdale, Niki Puleio, Thomas Daly, Toby Kearns, Connor Panting, Emyr Bissmire and John Burridge. Our 10th finisher was Gareth Richards who ran sub 20 on a cross country style course less than 2 weeks after his second 100 miler in the last 3 months. It was the first time this year that our top 10 men out-scored Bridgend. Our female top 10 were equally as impressive with arguably our strongest performance in any BCRL fixture. Katie Plimmer, Willow Hughes, Bethan Moor, Freya Allen and Angharad Croot all came in between 21:24 and 22:23 to finish between 7th and 13th overall out of the ladies. We then had Gem Richards, Jules Esmond, Alison Allen, Lisa Davies and Fiona Drysdale making up our top 10 with great performances all round. Again, with the great turnout, we finished second overall on the night and opened up a significant gap to Porthcawl in third.