parkruns
The first Saturday of the month saw 80 members either run or volunteer at a parkrun. We had 11 head to Newport for what is this months trail championship fixture in which late-comer to the party, Angharad Croot posting a 22:22 time for second female and only 10 seconds behind the first female overall. Further afield we had Darren Talbot at Malahide parkrun in Ireland and much further away than that, Matt and Deb Edwards ran at Weedon Island Preserve parkrun in Florida. Johnson’s Tours headed to Teifi Marshes parkrun with 8 OPR members in attendance. There was a good OPR turnout at Aberfields where tourist and multiple world-record holder in long distance challenges, Adam Holland, beat the course record with a 16:17. John and Kieron Burridge were second and third overall.
The second Saturday saw a massive 94 members either running or volunteering across 20 different parkrun venues. Amongst the huge amount of tourism included Johnson’s Tours at Milano Nord in Italy, Darija Keenor and Darren Talbot at Victoria parkrun in Glasgow, and Liz, Andy and Luke Davis at Havant parkrun near Portsmouth. We had 40 members at Porthcawl to celebrate Paul Teesdale and Samantha Morgan who were both running their 50th parkruns. Worth noting that Sam was completing this parkrun at 35 weeks pregnant and has done nearly half of her 50 parkruns during this pregnancy. Tom Daly was 3rd overall out of 593 runners and only 18 seconds off the first finisher. Sally Pensom was second female at Aberfields. Paul Barrett celebrated his 100th parkrun at Parc Coed Gwilym parkrun with 9 other members in attendance at what has been a very popular tourism destination in it’s first 10 events for our members.
The third Saturday saw another bumper turnout with 90 members either running or volunteering across 23 parkrun venues. Around 15 different venues used to be a high week but now we regularly see 20+. The Runs Podcast visit to Barry Island saw 8 of our members head there for a very warm parkrun on the coast. Alica Thomas was at Rheinpark parkrun in Germany whilst Johnson’s Tours headed to Teignmouth Promenade with 7 members in tow. We had a couple of first finishers with Kieron Burridge taking the position 1 token at Aberfields and Jamie Verran at Maesteg. Bethan Moor was second female at Tremorfa whilst Katie Plimmer was 3rd female at Newport. Darren Talbot ran his 50th parkrun at Jubilee parkrun in Bedford and in the process became our first member to run his first 50 parkruns at 50 different events. Thomas Daly also celebrated his 50th parkrun in style with a PB and first sub 18 clocking at Dulwich parkrun where he ran 17:56 which incredibly despite that time being fast enough to finish first at a lot of parkruns, he was 22nd overall.
Bank Holiday weekend saw 89 members either running or volunteering across an incredible 27 different parkrun venues. We had international tourism with Angharad Croot at Farfalle in Italy where she was first female finisher, Johnson’s tours headed to Fire Service College parkrun with 9 OPR members taking the trip. Closer to home, Keiron Burridge followed up his 20:01 from the week before with a 19:58 for third overall whilst the in-form Alice Jenkins clocked a PB time. At Tremorfa we had 2nd overall and 2nd female with Connor Panting and Bethan Moor respectively. Lee Dunbar-Bowen ran a PB at Llanishen Park with a 23:48 whilst Marina was at another Cardiff event getting 3rd female at Trelai parkrun. At Maesteg we had Niki Puleio first across the line with Emyr Bissmire in 3rd overall.
The fifth and final parkrunday of the month saw 78 members either running or volunteering. Karl headed to Father Collins parkrun in Ireland whilst there was plenty of other tourism on the day. A big turnout of OPR members at Porthcawl where Toby Kearns was 6th overall out of 627 runners which is amongst the top 5 highest attendances at Porthcawl in their 12 and a half years.
Races
5K
The summer 5K series continued with the second in the Aberavon 5K series. Connor Panting was our first member across the line with a PB of 18:26 taking advantage of the unusually calm conditions. Our first female across the line was Katie Plimmer with 20:40 for her second fastest 5K time whilst it was a huge PB for Freya Allen with a 21:02. Rosie Plimmer knocked over 2 minutes off her PB on a great night for our 19 runners in attendance.
A week later, and a day after the Heol y Mynydd BCRL fixture, 16 members took on the Tri Hard on the Bay 5K. I don’t think I’m speaking out of turn by saying the pizza and beer at the end was a big draw for most of us! Another relatively calm night on the coast led to more amazing PB’s with Connor smashing his time from the previous week with a 18:01. Jo Jenkins continued her brilliant form this year with her second 5K PB of the year, knocking another 20 seconds off with a 23:36 with her running at least 5K day every day streak now well into the 200+ days. Lisa Davies also continues to see steady improvement with a PB of 24:18 whilst Deb Edwards also bagged herself a new PB.
We also had members taking on their first ever 5K (or rather 5,000m) track race in month with the Tonypandy Track Classic. Myself, John Burridge and Scott Gray were in the ‘D’ race of the graded races. Scott ran a PB whilst John wasn’t far off his best 5K time. I ran 20:08 for my best time in over 8 years. There was also The Runs podcast Community Event which Niki Puleio and Rhodri Davies took part in which raised money towards Diabetes UK.
On the final weekend of the month, Chris Pratt ran the Home Nations Podium event in Cardiff which see’s some of Britain’s top athletes competing on a fast 3 lap course around Bute Park. Chris ran his fastest time of the year with a 22:15.
10K
Last month I missed including Magor 10K where we had 3 runners. In form Niki Puleio smashed his 10K PB with a 34:34 which is also an club age category record for 45 years plus. John Burridge ran just outside his PB with a 37:51 whilst Keiron Burridge ran 40:50.
A very rare midweek 10K saw 6 members take on the Severn Bridge 10K. Normally this event is run the same time as the Severn Bridge Half Marathon but with that event seemingly on a long hiatus, Rogue Runs decided to include it within their series of events. Despite a bumpy course we came away with 4 PB’s with the two of us who didn’t PB (Jo and I) having a decent excuse having run an ultra just 48 hours earlier. Katie Plimmer ran 43:04 whilst I helped pace Lisa Davies to 53:01 – although I have no doubt she could have easily done it without me. Alice Jenkins and Rosie Plimmer ended up crossing the line together in 1:09:33 and 1:09:34 respectively. All four knocking at least a minute of their previous bests.
Other Races
Three members took on the 10.5 mile Beast of Bryn with Jonathan Matthews leading the OPR members across the line followed by Paul Harris and Mark Worrall. We also had three members in the 6 mile option with Debbie Bennion, Sharon Pritchard and Laura Worrall completing the challenging course.
Jo and I took on the Loopathon which is a charity event put on by Albany Road Running Club with entrants taking on 5K loops around Roath Park playing fields and the lake – basically miles 9-12 of the Cardiff Half route. I’ve done this event in each of the four years whilst this was Jo’s second appearance having both done it last year. In temperatures reaching 28 degrees, I completed 11 laps for a total of 55K in around 6 and a half hours whilst Jo completed 10 laps for 50K in 6 hours 12 minutes. I did the second most laps of anyone there whilst Jo was joint 3rd and joint 1st lady for most laps. This came just 5 weeks after Jo achieved her longest distance ever by completing the 50 mile Dragon Ultra and is her 3rd ultra in 4 months (with a marathon in that period as well!).
From the longest event of the month to the shortest as Chris Pratt and I took on a track race for the first time (this was a week before the Tonypandy Track Classic). Chris had received an e-mail about a mile track race on the Aberdare track that they were encouraging those that had never run track before to give it a go. We were both a bit nervous given the only others who signed up were 4 Bridgend AC runners plus two very fast younger runners with track experience. It was a great experience though and we even ended up joining in on the 4 x 100m relay event at the end.
We had 4 runners at the latest South Wales Phoenix Running offering – the Bumblebee Run. Jayne Bissmire ran 2 laps to clock 6.6 miles, Alice Jenkins and Debbie Bennion did 3 laps to clock 9.9 miles whilst Sharon Pritchard did 5 laps for a total of 16.5 miles.
Fiona Drysdale took on the Machen Mountain race which is 7k in distance but with over 1,000 feet of elevation packed into 4 and a bit miles.
BCRL
This month saw 79 members head to Heol y Mynydd for the challenging trail course. James Griffiths was our first runner across the line with Paul Teesdale not to far behind him. Our top 10 men were completed by Emyr Bissmire (who is still on a run every day streak for 2025), John Burridge, Toby Kearns, Gareth Battle, Gareth Richards, Matt Edwards, Rhodri Thomas and Keiron Burridge. I seem to be saying this every fixture but our ladies produced possibly their best ever BCRL performance with Bethan Moor, Willow Hughes, Katie Plimmer, Freya Allen and Angharad Croot finishing 4th to 8th in the female rankings and just 58 seconds separating the 5 of them. Our top 10 was then completed by strong performances by Sian Price, Gem Richards, Marina Konstantinova, Lisa Davies and Alison Allen. There were great performances throughout the field with almost all of our runners beating their time on the same course from the previous year. That was good enough to get us second place on the night in the team / club standings to put us in a very strong position to finish runners up this year.
Aside from the running there was another very successful social event with the summer BBQ which included plenty of food, a raffle in which toilet rolls are apparently now the prize everyone wants to get, a quiz and karaoke. We also saw a couple of plod and a pint Fridays.