Category: Month review

Saturday 1st – parkruns and Vale 18.5 / 32 Ultra

A lowest attendance in well over a year with 21 runners across 6 parkruns due to so many running the Vale races. There were PB’s at Porthcawl for Ashley H, Claire G and Darjia M. There was plenty of parkrun tourism with Saul at Southampton, Chris R at Knowsley, Karl J at Wythenshawe and Ann D at Llanelli. I ran at Barry Island parkrun before going on to the Vale 18.5. My parkrun marked a full year of not missing a Saturday parkrun. Only Nick H had previously achieved this with the club.

At the Vale races we had 43 runners with 23 doing the 18.5 miler (closer to 20) and 20 doing the 32 mile Ultra (nearer 33). The Ultra started from Penarth Pier whilst the 18.5 started from Porthkerry with both finishing in Ogmore by Sea. Christian Thomas lead the 18 milers home after I’d lead the Blue Wave for the first 16 miles. Emma Loyns was first female back of the ‘shorter’ distance whilst several members ran their furthest distance race. In the full Ultra, Neil Jones not only lead the Blue Wave home… he lead the whole field finishing first overall. Kirsty Evans was first of the female members home. Phenomenal running by all 43 runners including several runner their first Ultras. The day will also be remembers for the outstanding support by members who drove to various parts of the course and the big support crew at the finish who provided mountains of food and drink for the finishers.

Sunday 2nd – Cardiff Bay 10K, Liverpool Half Marathon and Manchester Marathon

The inaugural Cardiff Bay 10K seen 41 of the Blue Wave in attendance. Wayne Hayhurst lead the Blue Wave home but it was the ladies just behind who took the plaudits with Josie Bishop setting a NEW FEMALE CLUB RECORD with 46:29 whilst Claire Dunbar-Bowen set a new female veteran club record with 47:39. There were also PB’s for David M, Sara V, Hannah B, Amy W, Lisa J and Shareen B.

At the Liverpool Half Marathon another female club record fell as Amy Roberts ran a super speedy 1:44:32 with her dad Chris for company. An amazing day for our female members.

The Manchester Marathon seen PB’s for both our runners with a 4:10 for Karl Johnson and a 5:00 for Emma Morris.

Saturday 8th – parkruns

A massive 59 runners at Porthcawl for the 4th anniversary celebrations with Fiona D the only tourist this week as she visited Swansea parkrun. It was a Baywatch theme at Porthcawl for Christie Colemans 100th parkrun where the man himself was the Hoff for the day with plenty of lifeguards in support. In fact, a photo of Cwm Ogwr’s dressing up efforts made the local paper. As for the running bit, new member Chris T was first back in a PB time of 19:48. I paced Karl J to a PB of 22:19 with Mark Gabb grabbing himself a PB just ahead of us. Kim T, Amy W, Steph D, Alana L and Sarah K all bagged themselves PB’s as well. The parkrun was followed by a Presentation at the Hi Tide where Cwm Ogwr topped the stats for most individual runners at Porthcawl parkrun and most combined runs. We also featured in the volunteer stakes with a special mention for Maria Lalic as well as Jo Betty who had recently helped out with timing and barcode scanning whilst injured.

Sunday 9th – Paris Marathon

Josie Bishop took on her first marathon around the streets of Paris and became our first female to run sub 4 hours in their debut marathon. Her time of 3:54 clocking her a senior female club record.

Saturday 15th – parkruns

60 runners across a record 9 different parkruns. 49 at Porthcawl where there was just one PB which belonged to Nicola Allen. Pippa Clark got a PB at Swansea parkrun accompanied by Alun and Rhiannon. Dawn H ran at Grangemoor, Saul was at Dartford, the Hillmans chose Pontypridd, Peter W and Kimberley D were at Cardiff, Chris S at Trelissick, Fiona D at Inverness whilst parkrun tourism couple Julie and Shawn were at Burgess.

Saturday 22nd – parkruns

55 runners across a record equalling 9 parkruns again. 43 at Porthcawl where there were PB’s for Nicola P, Kim T, Sue R and Sarah K. I got a PB at Tewkesbury finishing 5th overall with a 19:47 – my third sub 20 and at 3 different venues. Karl J and Aled attended the inaugural Merthyr parkrun. Brett B ran at Poole, Chris P ran at Eastleigh, Jayne P ran at the Gnoll whilst Christie C ran at Blackpool ahead of the marathon the next day. There were also plenty of London Marathon runners and supporters in action warming up with a parkrun the day before with Mervyn at Basildon and Peter W, Kim D, Dai K and Keith C at Burgess.

Sunday 23rd – London Marathon, Blackpool Marathon, Madrid Half Marathon, Bryn Bach 6 miler

Our magnificent seven at London were lead home by Neil Jones in a NEW CLUB RECORD of 2:54:24. Next up were Dai K and Kevin R followed by a PB for Keith Coleman with 4:01. Emma L was first club female in 4:30:03 in what was her debut marathon. I’m sure she will want me to point out is 114 seconds quicker than I ran the same course in 2014. There were two further marathon debutants with Liz Sim finishing in 4:52 and Matt M in 5:36.

In Blackpool, Antony Lewis ran his 6th marathon for the club in a time of 4:05 whilst Christie Coleman completed the course in 4:53. In the Madrid Half Marathon, Fiona D and Dawn H completed the course in times of 2:07 and 2:16 respectively. Karl, Alica, Natasha and Angela P all opted for the Bryn Bach 6 miler.

Saturday 29th – parkruns

60 runners across a record 12 (TWELVE!) different parkrun venues. Cwm Ogwr haven’t just taken over Porthcawl parkrun.. we’re taking over UK parkrun. Starting at Porthcawl where the 47 runners were lead home by Stephen D who finished second overall in 18:20. Just 6 days after his marathon PB Keith Coleman ran a 5K PB. There were also PB’s for Ashley Howells, Sue Roberts (accompanied by husband Chris Roberts), Gwyneth Steddy, Shelley Evans (accompanied by Matt Murray), first timer Rachael LD and Hannah Kinsella who crossed the line with Dai Power. Awesome to see so many of our runners supporting each other.

Away from Porthcawl was a huge list of tourism. John B at Aberdeen, Chris S at Riverfront, Rhiannon B ran a PB at Torbay, Ann at Llanelli, I ran at Kettering, Niki ran at Aberystwyth, Karl at Longrun Meadow, Martin at Pomphrey Hill, Chris P at Colby, Mark G at Barry and the Hillmans at Grangemoor.

Sunday 30th – Pembrokeshire 100, St Ilyts Ultra 50K and Cardiff Race to Victory 5K

Nick Harris and Jamie Vanstone took on the 100 mile race organised by Run Walk Crawl. Not only was it 100 miles but it also had 16500ft/5030m ascent. For some sort of reference point it is roughly the equivalent of doing the Beast 10K 16 times in a row both in terms of elevation and distance. After 31 hours Nick and Jamie made Cwm Ogwr history becoming the first members to complete a 100 mile race.

Saturday 4th – parkruns

52 runners across a record 10 different parkruns in 3 different countries. At Porthcawl Stephen Davies became our 3rd parkrun winner following in the footsteps of Neil Jones and Dai Kembery. His time of 18:15 was a huge 37 seconds clear of second place. Liz Sim clocked a new parkrun PB accompanied by Gareth Richards whilst Emma Williams made it 4 parkrun PB’s in 5 attempts. My February runner of the month Claire Taylor knocked 48 seconds off her PB making it an improvement of 2 minutes and 16 seconds this year.

Away from Porthcawl, Chris Pratt ran at Cambridge parkrun where an issue with the timers meant everyone was given a time of 59:59. Could argue Chris was joint first. Jayne P ran at Gnoll, Ann Davies ran at Llanelli, Shawn and Julie ran at Penrhyn, Niki, Brian and the Hillmans ran at Grangemoor, and Chris S ran at Hereford. Kelly ran at Florida’s Clermont Waterfront parkrun for the second week in a row and third time in total. Dai K was just 6 seconds away from a PB at Cardiff. Neil Jones clocked yet another sub 18 at Pontypridd parkrun with Karl Johnson also in attendance.

Sunday 5th – Newport HM, Cambridge HM, Anglesey 10K and HM, St Davids Day 5K and 10K

One of our busiest Sunday’s in a long while in terms of number of different events. 48 runners across 6 different events. Starting in Cardiff with the St Davids Day 5K where founder member Ross Jones made a return to running 2 and a half years after his last parkrun with a 32:17. New members Angharad Rees and Shareen Bentley also completed the 5K run.

Our biggest number of entries for the day was the St Davids 10K event which seen 30 of the Blue Wave in attendance. Chris Roberts lead the Blue Wave home with Daniel Clark and Mark Gabb getting PB’s just behind him. Nicola Symonds was our first female home in what could be her last event for us before moving to the newly formed Pencoed Panthers. Liz Sim joined a short list of runners who’ve completed a double PB weekend again accompanied by Gareth Richards. Claire Goldworthy and Sara Vowles got PB’s under the hour mark. The huge number of PB’s continued with Stephanie Dyke, Amy Williams, Joanne Rowling, Cath Griffiths, Angela Parry, Emma Jayne, Nicola Parsons, Alun Wylde, Rhiannon Whiteley, Mandie Owen and Pippa Clark.

There were 13 of the Blue Wave at Newport Half Marathon. I was first back with a PB run of 1:33:21 in my 37th Half Marathon. It also meant I temporarily held the record for fastest club HM time in 2017. Graham Mackleworth, Karl Johnson, Darjia Mann and Matt Murray all clocked PB’s as well. Great team spirit with 5 of our 13 runners finishing together as Matt had a team of pacers with the Garratts, Liz and Mark Worrall joining him.

Chris Pratt ran the Cambridge Half Marathon in 1:44:10… not bad after a parkrun time of 59:59 the day before! Shawn Cullen ran the Angelsey Half Marathon in a PB of 2:26:36 whilst Ellen Wyn Evans ran in the 10K event.

Saturday 11th – parkruns

48 runners across 7 parkruns.  A first sub 20 at Porthcawl for me with a 19:59 and a very rare parkrun where I was first Cwm Ogwr runner across the line. New member Chris Truman set an impressive debut parkrun time of 20:33. There was a course PB for Kirsty Evans accompanied by Stephen. Stephanie Dyke clocked her first parkrun PB since November last year. 2017 Zero to Hero recruit Leah Boon made it 3 PB’s in what is already her 5th parkrun appearance.

Away from Porthcawl Denise was first in her age category in Grangemoor and had the highest age grade percentage of the day. Dawn and Kevin ran at Swansea, David Sheard ran at Cwmbran and Karl Johnson ran at Pontypridd. Aled Hughes made one of the longest journeys ever to attend a parkrun and informs me it is the furthest West of any parkrun done by a club member as he ran at Crissy Fields parkrun in San Francisco.

Sunday 12th – Llanelli HM, Bath HM, Wrexham HM, Silverstone HM, Grisly 20 miler, Neath 10 miler

Another very busy Sunday with four different half marathons and a 10 miler.

Starting at Llanelli were we had 24 runners. Chris Pratt lead the Blue Wave home just ahead of Simon Harrison. Juliet Amner set a new club age category record and was 2nd her category in the race itself. Tula Smallman bagged herself a PB with a sub 2 hour finish.

David Shaun McCann, Matt Murray and Shawn James Cullen all made it two half marathon PBs in as many weeks. I helped pace Matt in what was my 5th half marathon in 24 days. A 3 minute PB for Lisa Jenkins. A huge 22 minute PB for Claire Taylor having run Swansea Half last year. Well done to half marathon newbies Angela Parry, Rhiannon Whiteley and Pippa Clark who pick up PB’s for their first half marathons.

The Garratts ran their half around Silverstone race track. There was a 9 minute PB for Emma Williams at Bath Half Marathon following a parkrun PB last week. Carole Bartle was 3rd in her age category with a PB at Wrexham Half.

At the Neath 10 miler there were PB’s all round. Niki broke his own club record. Neil was running his first 10 miler for the club whilst Kevin set an club age category record and knocked over 10 minutes off his 10 mile PB having only previously run the multi terrain Pembrey 10 mile course.

Richard Lowcock James took on the Grisly 20 miler. Described on the website as “Twentyish muddy, hilly, boggy, beachy miles of the multiest-terrain running experience you will find this side of the end of time.” It’s so popular entry is via a ballot. I can confirm RLJ made it out alive.

Saturday 18th – parkruns, Windsor Half Marathon and Darth Mannion

50 runners across 3 parkruns with 46 of those at Porthcawl. We had an influx of new runners with a few of the new Zero to Hero running their first parkruns for the club. Despite blustery conditions there were a number of PB’s. The first of which was for David McCann who I helped pace to a 86 second PB. David is just 1 second away from making it 5 minutes off his first parkrun time just 2 months ago.

Brett Bonnell bagged a PB in his first Porthcawl parkrun in over a year. Gwyneth Steddy, Alana Lutwyche and Sarah C King all got PB’s as part of our Zero to Hero group. Alana was our 200th different finisher registered as Cwm Ogwr at Porthcawl parkrun.

There were also PB’s for Louise Bennett and Lisa Jenkins. Leah Boon made it 2 PB’s in as many weeks and has now knocked over 4 minutes off her first parkrun time set just 6 weeks ago. The Hillmans ran at Cardiff whilst at Pontypridd Neil Jones got first place for the first time at that venue. It’s the 4th different parkrun venue he has finished first.At the Windsor Half Marathon Nicola Prior got her first sub 2 hour half marathon time whilst there were superb times across the board for our girls with a couple of others very close to PB times.As you’ll have seen from other posts, Richard Lowcock James managed to find another bizarre crazy mudfest of a run called the Darth Mannion. Haven’t seen any results for this one yet but I suspect our captain may convince a few more to do it next year.

Sunday 19th – Forest of Dean Half Marathon and San Dom 20 miler

We had 5 runners at the Spring edition of the Forest of Dean Half Marathon. There’s also an Autumn one in September if anyone interested a trial half marathon later in the year. Juliet Amner lead the way in 1:52 whilst Liz Sim clocked her 3rd PB of the month at her 3rd different distance with a 2:02 knocking 4 minutes off her PB accompanied by Gareth Richards. Ian Lewis clocked a 2:10 whilst Jonathan Mead got 2:17.

Before this date, only 12 Cwm Ogwr runners had done a 20 mile event so it was a bit of a surprise to see 18 signed up for the San Domenico 20 miler. Neil Jones lead the way in a 20 mile PB time of 2:13:31 putting him in the top 10 finishers. Niki Puleio was next up with an impressive 2:27:45. New member Emma Jane Morris was our first female and came in under the 3 hour mark with a 2:56:39. Of the ones that had run a 20 miler before, Christie Coleman picked up a PB knocking 5 minutes off his time set at Llanelli last year.

Saturday 25th – parkruns

57 runners across 5 parkrun venues. 52 of which were at Porthcawl were Stephen Davies became the second Cwm Ogwr member to be the first finisher with his first sub 18 as well and also a club age category record. Not many other PB’s due to a lot of Princess fancy dress efforts slowing most people down (except Stephen). However, there was a PB for Rhian Nolan in her first Porthcawl parkrun in almost a year.

Away from Porthcawl, the Denholms ran at Beeston, Dawn Hopkins ran at Parke whilst Neil Jones and Karl J ran at Pontypridd.

Sunday 26th – West Glam XC League and Merthyr HM

25 runners at Aberavon Beach for the final fixture of the West Glamorgan XC League. A 5 mile route along the beach with some testing sand dunes in the middle before battling a strong head wind on the way back. Stephen Davies was first Cwm Ogwr runner back with Gareth Richards, Simon Harrison, Chris Truman and Chris Thomas making up the remainder of the points scoring positions. A massive well done to our men’s team finished 2nd in Division 3 gaining promotion!

Betty Lee lead the women home with Kelly Owen, Victoria Hillman, Denise Bradley and Bethan Cross making up the other scoring positions. Bethan achieved a top 5 club finish in all 5 events and was one of only three members along with myself and Pippa to run in all fixtures. Our female team finished 6th in Division 2 which should secure them a place in the same division next year even if a third division is created with additional teams joining.

At the Merthyr Half Marathon, Karl Johnson picked up his second half marathon PB this month with Nigel Rees and Darjia Mann also running for the blue wave.

Chairman’s Runners of the Month

For one month only, I’m listening to the members for who the runners of the month should be as a few people have suggested these for this months choices…

Male Runner of the Month – Gareth Jenkins

Yes – it’s with some embarrassment but great pride that I’m writing about myself for runner of the month. My Half Marathon PB in Newport of 1:33:21 remains the fastest half marathon time in the club so far this year. A week later I got my first sub 20 at Porthcawl parkrun. I also helped pace Matt Murray to a Half Marathon PB in Llanelli and David McCann to a parkrun PB this month. I also ran the final fixture of the West Glam XC League and was the only male runner in the club to complete all 5 fixtures finishing second highest in the club in the overall individual standings.

Female Runner of the Month – Elizabeth Sim

An easy choice with Liz getting 5K, 10K and Half Marathon PB’s this month. She beat all by large margins and the Half Marathon was actually a hilly trail race in the Forest of Dean.

Wednesday 1st – Club Championship 1500m time trial

The first club championship event of this year seen 41 members run 5 laps of the 300m Bridgend AC track in a 1500m time trial. Times were compared to average mile pace for each members parkrun best over the past 12 months to come up with results. A great atmosphere on the night with each group being cheered around by the rest of the runners who were awaiting their turn. New member David McCann came out on top with Claire Taylor top female and Lisa Jenkins 3rd. Fastest time of the night went to Niki Puleio with 5:17.

Saturday 4th – parkruns and Presentation Night

60 runners across 6 parkruns. A huge turnout with 53 of the Blue Wave at Porthcawl. Chris Pratt clocked his second sub 20 in as many weeks whilst I knocked 28 seconds of my best at Porthcawl which dates back to 2015. Winner of the first club championship event David McCann knocked nearly 4 minutes off his PB in his second parkrun. My January runner of the month Angela Parry got her 3rd PB of this year whilst Joanne Rowling clocked her first PB of the year.

Claire Taylor was accompanied by Jo Betty for the 5K whilst I joined the party for the final 2K with a huge 88 second PB for Claire. We also had our first 2017 Zero to Hero graduate with Leah Boon running her first parkrun with a little help from Rhiannon, Sian T and Sian LG.

Away from Porthcawl Aled Hughes beat his PB dating back to May last year with a 19:19 at Swansea. Neil Jones ran a 17:48 which took him past 100 miles of running for the week! Stephen, Bethan and Dawn ran at the Gnoll, Chris Roberts ran at Grangemoor and Ian Lewis ran his 50th parkrun at Bedford.

We had over 100 attendees at the Presentation Night at the Heronstone Hotel to celebrate achievements of the club and it’s members for 2016. A massive thank you to the social committee and everyone involved in the evening and well done to all the winners listed below.

 

2016 Presentation Night Winners

Club Championship

Super Veterans – Denise Bradley and Christie Coleman

Veterans – Fiona Drysdale and Aled Hughes

Senior and Overall – Shelley Smithson and Neil Jones

Newcomers – Claire Dunbar-Bowen and Keith Coleman

Level Playing Field – Lucy Hancock and Neil Jones

Best Runners

Super Veterans – Denise Bradley and Kevin Archie Raymond

Veterans – Claire Dunbar Bowen and Aled Hughes

Senior – Shelley Smithson and Neil Jones

Most improved – Rhiannon Buckley

Best Newcomer – Pippa Clark

Zero to Hero – Shawn James Cullen

Runners Runner of the Year – Christie Coleman

Sunday 5th – Beast 10K

The first Cwm Ogwr event of the year seen the second annual Beast 10K which sold out weeks in advance. Despite a small delay with using our chip timing system for the very first time, the event was another huge success with the male and female course records broken. A huge thank you to everyone who volunteered – particularly as most had been out the night before at the presentation night.

Saturday 11th – parkruns

A record 64 runners across 7 parkruns. A record attendance at Porthcawl as well with 57 runners. Stephen Davies equalled his PB of 18:43 despite the parkrun being in the middle of a 22 mile run. There was a huge 70 second PB for Matt Murray accompanied by myself, the Hillmans and Chris Pratt.

A PB for new member Tula Smallman just behind us with a 25:50. Club Championship leader David McCann got yet another PB knocking another 20 seconds off his time. A great PB by Catherine Griffiths whilst Nicola Allen knocked 51 seconds off her PB.

Saturday 18th – parkruns and Hoka Trail Half Marathon

39 runners across 3 parkruns. A slightly smaller attendance than usual due to the Hoka Half Marathon later that morning. At Porthcawl, Stephen Davies ran an outstanding 18:08 and is now well clear in second place in the club 5K rankings. Aled Hughes ran a Porthcawl best of 19:33 whilst Karl Johnson also ran a course best with 22:40. There were also PB’s for Mandie Owen and new runner Leah Boon.

Elsewhere Neil Jones ran a 17:52 at Pontypridd whilst Ann Davies ran a 29:53 at Llanelli.

39 runners at the Hoka Trail Half Marathon at Margam. Simon Harrison was our first runner back in 1:47:54 on a tough hilly course with 1800 feet of elevation including a mile long incline from mile 10 to 11. Our first female back was Josie Bishop in 2:10:33. Well done to Bethan Cross who despite a injury managed to get a Half Marathon PB of 2:27:43.

Sunday 19th – Brecon to Cardiff Ultra Marathon

Last year seen over a several members enter the world of Ultra running which was a big factor in 6 signing up for this 44 miler following the Taff Trail from Brecon to Nantgarw. Jamie Vanstone ran a superb sub 7 hour time to finish in 18th place overall. Gareth Richards, Wayne Hayhurst and Gary Piper all completed their first ultras whilst Brian was running it for the second year in a row and his third Ultra in 11 months having not run much more than half marathon previous to that.

Sunday 25th – parkruns and Ras Dewi Sant Half Marathon

63 runners across 6 parkruns. 57 runners at Porthcawl where Neil Jones finished 3rd in a time of 17:43. Stephen ran another sub 19 whilst Niki ran a sub 20 making it 3 Cwm Ogwr runners in the first 6 finishers. There were birthday celebrations for myself and Nicola Cornock with a lot of cakes on offer.

Away from Porthcawl, Claire DB ran a PB at Swansea with a 23:38 for her first sub 24. Sarah Littlewood ran at Lanhydrock parkrun which interestingly has had 7 different Cwm Ogwr tourists. The Hillmans ran at Cardiff whilst Diana Purnell ran at Llanelli.

Meanwhile Richard LJ ran the Ras Dewi Sant Half Marathon in around 2:18 on a tough multi terrain course around the Pembrokeshire course with storm Doris.

Sunday 26th – Pontypool 10K

Just a single Cwm Ogwr runner for this one with Matt Murray getting his first sub 1 hour 10K and knocking 3 minutes off his PB in the process.

The “Three halves and a little parkrun”

As part of my 2017 goals I wanted to run Half Marathons on consecutive days. I’d seen a running events company that do a week of events in Hartlebury which is 5-10 minutes drive from my in-laws in Worcestershire so having already signed up to the Hoka Trail on Sat 18th Feb I decided to enter their Thursday and Friday events to make it 3 in 3 days. The Hoka race didn’t start until 11am so I couldn’t resist still including a parkrun as well.

That particular week of events was called ‘The Seven Deadly Sins’ with a different deadly sin medal for each day. There was 10K, Half or Full Marathons options each day. It turned out I was the only one doing the half so am down on their website as the Half Marathon winner for that day! My intention was run around 1:55 to save myself for the subsequent halves… I ran 1:47:33 but felt comfortable.

Day two I felt surprisingly good.. I did have one competitor on day two but she was a 2 hour plus runner so I’m down as winning twice! Ended up running slightly quicker than the first day with a 1:46:43.

Traveled back Friday evening which meant Porthcawl parkrun that morning. The original plan was to leave early Saturday morning and do a parkrun tourism on the way back but it was cutting it too fine. I ended up offering to pace 25 minutes at Porthcawl which was pretty much the exact pace I’d done in the first 2 halves. Legs felt a bit heavier. Off to Margam for the final half marathon where I’d arranged to run with Bethan would be running around 2:30. We ran 2:27 with Bethan being the only runner to PB.

Really pleased with how the challenge went and definitely looking to extend it to 5 or 7 days of half marathons.

Chairman’s Male Runner of the Month – David McCann

Following in the footsteps of Matt Murray, Jo Betty and others, I’ve chosen David as my runner of the month in the first full month with the club. David has reduced his parkrun PB from 31:03 to 27:24 and only narrowly missed out on making in 4 PB’s in 4 parkruns at last weeks event. David was also the overall winner in the first club championship event of the year at the start of this month.

Chairman’s Female Runner of the Month – Claire Taylor

Second place overall and first female in the first club championship event of the year. Claire followed this up with parkrun PB knocking 88 seconds off her PB. This month has also seen Claire training for Llanelli Half Marathon including running to parkrun. An inspirational runner.

January 1 – parkruns and Kenfig 4 miler

New Years Day is the only day of the year that parkrun allow you to run two parkruns. With Cardiff starting at 9am and Barry Island at 10:30am, Chris Pratt, Nick Harris, Kris Denholm, Karl Johnson and myself went for the option of doing both. Neil Jones joined us at Cardiff where he ran 17:27 for his third sub 18 time within the space of 24 hours and 18 minutes and in the process set a seasons best that is unlikely to be beaten by anyone but himself less than 10 hours into the New Year. Mark Gabb joined us to do Barry Island only. Meanwhile, Aled clocked 19:58 at Swansea parkrun just ahead of Brian Cotton with David Evans, Juliet Amner and Christie Coleman also in attendance.

Later that morning was the Kenfig 4 miler with 39 members in attendance including the 5 who’d ran Swansea parkrun earlier. Neil Price was first of the Blue Wave across the line in a speed 25:07 on what turned out to be a 3.7 mile new route. Our first female was Denise Bradley who was celebrating her 100 event for the club. Well done to several of our runners who completed the Festive Four competition with this being the final event. Sian Tossell finished 5th in the ‘Green Jersey’ competition which looked at how participants did against seasons best times. Helen Griffiths, Jo Betty both made the top 10 with 9th and 10th respectively whilst Pippa and Claire T were just outside in 11th and 13th.

January 4 – Track Session

The second track session attracted even more runners with around 50-60 in attendance. Some chose a technique session in the clubhouse whilst others were put through their paces by multiple club record holder Neil Jones. The session ranged from doing 8 laps with 30 seconds recovery to some of the faster runners doing 12 laps and a couple of cool down laps to finish. Another superb session with many already looking forward to the next one.

January 7 – parkruns

58 runners across a massive 8 different parkruns. 33 were at Porthcawl where Stephen Davies annihilated his previous best set just 3 weeks earlier and finished a remarkable 3 overall with a time of 18:43. He becomes only the third Cwm Ogwr runner to get a sub 19 time and over the past month has jumped from 25 in the club 5K rankings to 3. Aled Hughes set a new course best for himself with 19:43 whilst Niki Puleio clocked an early season sub 20 time as well. Interestingly Aled’s time of 19:43 gives him a better age grade percentage than Stephens 18:43. New member Alun Wylde clocked himself his 3 PB in as many parkruns. Chris Stanlake got a course best whilst Cath Griffiths got a PB of 31:06.

We had 16 runners at the Gnoll which was a memorial run for Dan Tomlinson, a promising young runner who tragically died just over a year ago. Chris Pratt lead the way with seasons best all round with most running their first 5K of the year. Great to see coach Kev in attendance and some great team spirit with Pippa, Rhiannon, Sian T and Llinos running the whole course together.

The Hillman’s attended Cardiff parkrun where they had a record 815 runners. Dawn was at Newport, Jo Betty at Cheltenham and Fiona D at Grangemoor. Neil Jones clocked 17:37 at Pontypridd parkrun – the same time to the second that he ran there a week earlier. At the same parkrun, Neil Harris set a new PB with a time of 19:31. I attended Gloucester North parkrun where I became the 20 member of the sub 20 club with a time of 19:58 knocking 12 seconds off my PB. A lot of us had put what our goals for 2017 were on the clubs Facebook page and my top priority was to get a sub 20.. I didn’t expect it to come on the first Saturday of the year! It also meant we have a record 6 runners under 20 minutes on the same morning at 3 different venues.

Sunday 8 – Tata Steel Run Round the Reservoir   

This is normally a fixture in the West Glam XC league but after not making the list this season, they decided to still put on the event and only charge £2 for affiliated runners. A combination of no Zero to Hero session and interest in off road running seemingly being at an all time high in the club meant that over 30 members chose to do Richard’s trail session which took in part of the Hoka Half Marathon course just a few miles away from where this race was. Christie Coleman and Chris Roberts were our only runners in what was described as ‘the Blue Dribble’ as opposed to ‘the Blue Wave’. It meant after the first full weekend of the year, Christie already gained top spot on the 2017 most events table.

Thursday 12th – Chepstow Night Run 5 miler

Stephen, Bethan, Emma W and Ian signed up for this one which was a headtorch required night race which included hills that reduced runners to using their hands to climb and running through caves. Stephen finished the course in 41:37 for 21st position overall out of 294 runners. Bethan, Emma and Ian finished close together around the 1 hour 5 to 6 minutes mark.

Saturday 14th – parkruns

54 runners across 5 different parkruns. 46 of which were at Porthcawl where Stephen Davies helped pace Graham Hillman, and Chris Pratt helped pace Victoria Hillman to course bests. I ran with Jo Betty helping her knock an incredible 69 seconds off her PB which had been set over 6 years previous at Cardiff parkrun. There was more pacing heroics with Bethan helping Matt Murray to PB meaning both my December Runners of the Month picked up PB’s in the same morning. Angela Parry picked up a PB whilst Dai Power made it 5 Cwm Ogwr pacers to help others get PB’s with Lisa Jenkins knocking 43 seconds off her previous best.

Away from Porthcawl, Karl, Julie and Chris S ran at Newport, Sarah Littlewood ran at Telford and Peter Walsh ran at Brighton. Aled got a parkrun PB and was 2 seconds shy of his overall 5K PB at Cardiff parkrun with an impressive 40th place finish amongst a record attendance of 856. Nick Harris and Mark Gabb also ran at Cardiff with Mark pushing a buggy round.

Sunday 15th – West Glamorgan XC league – Margam Park and Riverbank Rollick

33 runners at the 4th fixture of the West Glamorgan Cross Country League. This one was a 2 lap course around Margam Park which was advertised as approximately 4.5 miles – it turned out there was a bonus mile and it was closer to 5.5! The lap started with a lengthy tarmac section before entering the zig zag ‘Field of Dreams’ which included a mixture of mainly grass and some muddy sections whilst gently inclining before a short sharper incline towards the top. At the highest point runners were treated to a mile or so of trail and mostly downhill back to the tarmac section at the start.

Stephen was first of the Blue Wave across the line in a speedy 36:12 followed a couple of minutes later by stand in captain for the day Chris Pratt. Simon, Kevin and Graham H made up the remaining scoring positions with myself and Nick Harris close behind.

Bethan Cross was the first Cwm Ogwr female across the line in 47:29 which would actually indicate a large 5 mile PB. Victoria, Claire W, Liz Davis and Sara made up the remaining points scoring places. In true Cwm Ogwr spirit, most of the members in attendance waiting for our final runner who on this occasion was Pippa and ran the final straight with her.

Meanwhile we had 17 runners taking on the Riverbank Rollick. A 9 mile race with mud, mud and more mud. Aled was first across the line for Cwm Ogwr with Daniel Clark second. Fiona Drysdale was first of our female runners.

Saturday 21st – parkruns

56 runners across 8 different parkruns. 45 at Porthcawl where Neil Price was first Cwm Ogwr back in a PB time of 19:42. Denise Bradley beat her PB which had stood for over a year whilst there was another PB for Angela Parry.

Away from Porthcawl, Aled helped pace Karl to a PB at Penallta parkrun, the Hillmans ran at Cardiff, Neil clocked another sub 18 at Pontypridd and Shawn and Julie continued their parkrun tourism run in Bournemouth. Dawn and Kevin ran at Swansea, Stephen, Bethan and Mark Gabb ran at Grangemoor and finally we had Jayne P at the Gnoll.

Sunday 22nd – Buff Trail 10K

The first 10K of the year brought an off-road event following the same course as the Night Trail Race that had a huge Blue Wave attendance last May. Just 12 runners this time with Nigel Hutchings leading the way just under the hour mark on the tough course which has a killer incline in the last kilometre. Josie was first Cwm Ogwr female less than a minute behind Nigel. Top effort by all.

Saturday 28th – parkruns

46 runners across 5 parkruns. At Porthcawl Stephen notched up another sub 19 and a time only Neil and Niki have beat in the past. There was a first sub 20 at Porthcawl for Chris Pratt and his fastest 5K since last June. Matt smashed his PB by 51 seconds and has 9 PBs from his 14 Porthcawl parkruns. Emma Williams got a PB despite running down to Porthcawl in only her second parkrun. Rhiannon Buckley had PB of the day knocking a huge 109 seconds off her best at Porthcawl. Her stepson George was first junior over the line in a swift 20:43.

Away from Porthcawl, Aled beat his PB which had stood since May last year. Aled has now achieved sub 20 at 6 different parkruns plus the Merthyr Mawr Lane 5K. There was also parkrun tourism from Chris R at Passhanger, Dawn at Barry, Nick and Mark at Penallta, whilst Saul ran at Southampton.

Sunday 29th – Lliswerry 8

29 runners for this race which sold in out just a few hours after a Snowdon Marathon style midnight entry system. Chris Pratt was first across the line beating his previous course best with Dai K and Nick Harris next up. Josie Bishop and Claire Dunbar Bowen were the two fastest female club runners respectively. We also had members running their first race over 10K distance so a massive well done to them.

Chairman’s Male Runner of the Month – Stephen Davies

2 months ago, Stephen had run 3 parkruns, a 10K and a two Cardiff Half Marathons in around 15 months. I’m not sure what happened.. but he seems to have caught the racing bug. He’s doubled that in January alone. An incredible 18:43 at parkrun catapulted him from outside our top 20 ranked 5Kers to third and only to Neil Jones and very close behind second placed Niki Puleio. He also finished 3rd in that parkrun. In another parkrun he helped pace Graham Hillman to a course best and then got another sub 19 in the final parkrun of the month. Add to that being first Cwm Ogwr by some margin in the Margam XC and a 21st placed finish in the Chepstow night race and it has been a remarkable month for Stephen.

Chairman’s Female Runner of the Month – Angela Parry

Angela notched up two parkrun PB’s in 2 weeks knocking a total 39 seconds off her previous best set in October. She also volunteered as tail runner in the final parkrun of the month in a role she has now done 4 times. There were also great performances in both the Kenfig 4 mile on New Years Day and the Lliswerry 8.

Saturday 3rd – parkruns, Aberavon Santa 5K, Might Contain Nuts Brecon 10 miler and Christmas drinks

The month kicked off with 43 runners across 5 parkruns. 38 of which were at Porthcawl where Brian lead the Blue Wave home with his first sub 20 at Porthcawl. There were overall PB’s for Wayne Hayhurst, Bethan Cross, Matt Murray and Jayne Kembery. Away from Porthcawl, Fiona D ran at Penallta, Ellen Wyn Evans at Penryhn, Simon M at Newport whilst Nick Harris and Mark Gabb warmed up for the Santa run by doing the Gnoll parkrun beforehand.

Later that morning, 40 of the Blue Wave got into their Santa Suits for the Aberavon Santa Run 5K. A dozen had already run a parkrun but we totaled 73 different runners for the morning. Brian led us home for the second time in two hours and despite wearing Santa Suits, Lloyd West and Rhiannon Buckley managed to bag themselves 5K PB’s.

Meanwhile, in Brecon, Gary Piper and Mark Worrall were taking on the ‘Might Contain Nuts’ Brecon 10 miler. A very hilly off road race with technical ascents and descents.

Later that day around 40 members met at the Wyndham Arms in Bridgend for the annual Christmas drinks with a few going onto the Wicked Lady and a small hardcore group carrying on until the early hours. A great night had by all.

Sunday 4th – Childrens Christmas Party

Our social committee are evil and decided to organise the clubs first childrens Christmas Party for the morning after the Christmas drinks. The chairman was in attendance and a little worse for wear and this was a theme for a few adults in attendance. Another fantastic event set up by the new committee and a massive thank you to everyone involved… even if they did insist on me getting involved in the party games!

Saturday 10th – parkruns

43 across across 5 parkruns with 36 at Porthcawl. Neil Price clocked his second sub 20 and improved his PB by a further 2 seconds. Jamie Bevan, Kim Thomas, Amy Williams, Louise Bennett and Joanne Rowling all got PB’s as well. Away from Porthcawl, Neil Harris ran a PB of 19:36 at Cardiff putting him up to 6th fastest on the Cwm Ogwr rankings. Julie and Shawn ran at Perry Hall, Chris Pratt ran at Huddersfield and Karl ran at Cheltenham.

Sunday 11th – Merthyr Mawr Pudding Run

An amazing turnout with 61 runners making the Blue Wave by far the biggest represented club at the event. Our top 5 runners were seperated by just 51 seconds with Aled, myself, Nick, Dai K and Graham H. Kelly was our first lady in with a course best. A special mention for Rhiannon Buckley who ran the event last year having only started running a few weeks before and on her return this year, beat her time by over 18 minutes. Plenty of the Blue Wave ran in fancy dress so it was a mixture of fun running and competitiveness with the race also being a club championship fixture which ended up confirming several winners which I’ll post about in the final review of the year. The race also marked the 102nd event of the year for Christie Coleman, setting a new record which again, I’ll write more about in the final blog of the year.

Saturday 17th – parkruns, Cottrell Park Christmas Cracker 10K and Christmas Party

40 runners across 8 parkruns with one of our lowest Porthcawl attendances in a while at 29. Neil Price set a PB for the second week in a row knocking another 8 seconds off his time for a 19:49 with Graham Mackleworth up next also beating his PB. David Kembery shaved a second off his PB whilst Jo Betty smashed her first parkrun with a 27:38 after apparently telling others she’d be happy with sneaking under the 30 mark. PB of the day has to go to Jayne Kembery who on her 50th parkrun beat her PB by 26 seconds and in the process got her first sub 30 with a 29:42. Oh, and did I mention we were all wearing Christmas jumpers as well!

Away from Porthcawl, Aled, Karl, Christie and Brian ran at Grangemoor before heading to the Cottrell Park 10K which started by 30-40 minutes after they’d finished their parkrun. Aled ran a super-speedy 19:43 making it the 3rd different parkrun he has achieved sub 20. Neil J and Niki are the only others to achieve this. Neil Harris followed up his overall parkrun PB last week with a 19:51 at Pontypridd. Bethan Cross was first in her age category at Bognor Regis. The Hillmans ran at the Gnoll, Chris R at Harlow and Fiona D at Linford Woods. Martin Beard ran the Rhodes parkrun in Australia – his 3rd different Australian parkrun and despite a slightly earlier start time, the temperature was around 28 degrees.

14 of the Blue Wave headed to Cottrell Park for the Winter version of their 10K that just myself, Brian and Christie ran the year before. Neil Jones finished 6th overall and would have finished higher had it not been for a fall around the halfway mark. Jayne Powney was first Cwm Ogwr female whilst Llinos Humphreys won a prize for being the final runner.

That evening around 20 odd of the Blue Wave descended on the Hi Tide in Porthcawl where the local Bridgend clubs got together for a joint Christmas Party. A great night had by all with the highlight being the secretly new formed band ‘Caution Runners’ which included our very own Chris Pratt as well as representatives from Bridgend AC, Porthcawl Runners and Cornelly Striders.

Still to come in December

The Festive Four competition is due to get underway with parkruns on both Christmas Eve and New Years Eve, an option of either the Porthcawl Lions 7K on Boxing Day or a 5 miler in Glynneath, plus the New Years Day 4 miler in Kenfig. Nos Galan 5K can also be used as one of the options. Rhiannon Buckley won the most improved category last year having beaten her previous bests by more than anyone else and is back to defend her title.

My next blog is likely to be after Christmas, so a Happy Christmas to everyone. Hope Santa brings you lots of running related gifts!

Christmas Drinks – part 3 and 4

 The week leading up to Christmas seen the club take the usual quick stop at a local pub a bit further. Tuesdays session involved more than 20 members running to the Wyndham pub with most staying for at least an hour and some (Kirsty Evans and Claire Dunbar Bowen) staying considerably longer. Then Wednesday’s session also decided to do a more swift pub stop at Tondu Railway club. No doubt this will now be an annual fixture with potentially more focus on the drinking than the running!

Christmas Eve – parkruns

Surely people got other things to do on a Christmas Eve morning? Apparently not… a staggering 70 runners across 5 different parkruns setting a new parkrun participation club record and a record at Porthcawl with 65 of the runners there. It was a triple celebration with Dai Power, Sian Tossell and Mervyn Beckwith all carefully timing their 100th parkruns for the occasion. Many dressed up and the less said about my outfit the better. As for the running bit, Stephen Davies got himself into the sub 20 club despite starting towards the back of a record 425 strong crowd at Porthcawl with a 19:53 and was first Cwm Ogwr across the line. Richard Lowcock James set a late season PB whilst Jo Betty and Matt Murray got PB’s – both for the second time in December. Bethan Cross helped pace Kimberley Thomas to a PB whilst Amy Williams had the unfortunate sight of my outfit for the entire run as I paced her to PB exactly one minute faster than her previous time – she may have been trying to run away from me which might have helped. Nicola Allen completed the set of Porthcawl parkrun PB’s for the morning.

Away from Porthcawl, Neil Jones notched up another sub 18 run at Cardiff whilst Neil Harris ran another sub 20. Karl Johnson ran at Pontypridd, Simon Melksham at Newport and Brett Bonnell at the Gnoll.

Christmas Day – parkrun

 Yes – this is a thing… Cardiff and Newport have both done Christmas Day parkruns for a number of years with Richard LJ, Dai Power and Sian Tossell attending in previous years. Sian was back again, along with Fiona Drysdale, Gavin Lewis and Juliet Amner.

Boxing Day – Porthcawl Lions 7K and Glynneath 5 miler

35 runners in attendance for the Porthcawl Lions 7K which starts at the Hi Tide and takes in the entirety of the parkrun course plus a bit extra at either end. Neil Jones finished 3rd overall with a time of 25:36 for the 4.5 mile course (roughly 7K). Several members including Aled, Brian and myself improved on our times from the previous year in what was also the final club championship event of the year. There was an unfortunate incident with Tammie falling at Rest Bay which resulted in a broken finger and hospital admission. A massive thanks to several of our club members who stopped to help and others that ran back to assist.

5 members attended the Glynneath 5 miler where Shelley Smithson smashed her PB and was agonisingly just 4 seconds short of the female club record. Carole Bartle set a PB with a superb sub 40 time. A PB for Helen Griffiths meant she joined a select group of runners to have achieved the ‘Grand Slam of PB’s’ in a calendar year which includes 5K, 5 miles, 10K, 10 miles, Half Marathon and Marathon distances. Joanne Rowling also set a PB with it being her first 5 miler and was encouraged around the course by Keith Coleman.

New Years Eve – parkruns and Nos Galan 5K races

 55 runners across 4 parkruns. 49 at Porthcawl where we had yet another new member of the sub 20 club with Joey Howland clocking 19:51. Mark Gabb got a PB of 23:24. I paced Jo Betty for the second half of her run to a PB of 26:13. Incredibly this beat a time that was set over 6 and a half years previous. Richard Lowcock James became only the second member to run his 200th parkrun. Away from Porthcawl, Claire Taylor and Pippa ran at Swansea, Chris S, Julie R and Shawn ran at Llyn Llech Owain and Neil Jones ran at Pontypridd. Julie and Shawn’s run at LLO parkrun marked their 20th parkrun venue putting them on the UK parkrun most events table.

That evening 19 Cwm Ogwr runners were in Mountain Ash for the Nos Galan races. Neil Jones and Neil Harris ran in the Elite 5K race where Neil Jones set yet another club record of 17:08 whilst Neil Harris got 19:57. Neil Jones had also run a 17:37 at Pontypridd parkrun that morning. In the fun run 5K they were no more PB’s to be had as many enjoyed the party atmosphere on the course. The final race of the year resulted in Christie Coleman finishing on a club record 108 events for the year.

Chairman’s Male Runner of the Month – Matt Murray

Two parkrun PB’s for Matt in December as well as great performances in the Pudding Run and Cottrell Park 10K.

Chairman’s Female Runner of the Month – Jo Betty

The only member to get three parkrun PB’s and beating that 6 and a half year previous best. Jo also ran at the Pudding Run and accompanied Pippa on the Boxing Day 7K.

That’s it for 2016. Bring on 2017!

November 1 – Halloween Party

The first event set up by the social committee was a kids Halloween disco in Ogmore Life Centre. A great evening had by all and I think some of the adults enjoyed it even more the kids. Great costumes by those who attended and a mountain of fabulous food. Thanks to Natasha and her team for decorating the room and for the music and party games. Definitely one to be repeated.

 

November 5 – parkruns

A record equalling 55 runners across 8 parkruns. 44 of which were at Porthcawl where there were PB’s for Joey, Emma Loyns and Kimberley Thomas with her first sub 30. We had another new parkrunner with Amy Williams completing the course in 32:22. There are now 180 different Cwm Ogwr runners who’ve ran Porthcawl parkrun.

 

Away from Porthcawl there were plenty of tourists with Martin B in Bath, Neil Harris running his 50 parkrun in Pontypridd, Wayne running in Colby and Neil J finishing 3rd in another sub 18 time in Grangemoor. We had 3 runners at Cardiff where Jamie V set a new PB of 19:44 with the Hillmans also in attendance. Another 3 at Penallta where Shawn Cullen set a new PB of 27:04 with Dawn and Julie also running there. Kirsty Evans ran Swansea parkrun and obiliterated her previous PB by over a minute to finish in 23:07 to go equal 5th with Lorna in the 5K female rankings.

 

November 6 – Richard Burton 10K and Bog n Bryn

 

37 runners at the Richard Burton 10K, smashing last years total of 18 (which seemed a lot at the time). Niki Puleio was first Cwm Ogwr runner back in 40:50 with Aled just 5 seconds further back. Peter Walsh ran 43:53 to add a 10K PB to his 5K and Half Marathon PB’s he achieved in October. Both Lloyd West and Shelley Smithson made it three 10K PB’s in 2 months with Cardiff, Swansea and Richard Burton. Shelleys time puts her up to 3 fastest club female in the 10K rankings with her 48:03 and second fastest this year. The PB’s continued with James and Carol whilst Emma Williams knocked almost 4 minutes off her time set at Caerphilly earlier this year. June Parry, Bev Sheard, Rachel G, Cath Griffiths and Julie Ransom completed the PB list. Impressive running by all.

 

Starting at Cwmbran Stadium, 8 crazies from the Blue Wave turned up to take on the Bog n Bryn Trail ‘Half Marathon’ (actually 13.8 miles). A multi-terrain course with a mixture of tarmac, fields, mud and forestry paths. With countless amounts of styles, a few narrow wooden bridges and a couple of small streams added to the 1800 feet of elevation – this was certainly a good challenge. Most of the elevation is included between mile 5 and 10 and is agonisingly mostly undone with a mile of steep descent similar to the final mile in Snowdon Marathon. Jamie Vanstone completed the course in the most satisfying time of 1:59:59 and was 15th overall in a small field of just 130 odd runners. Graham Hillman was up next followed by Daniel Clark and then myself. Victoria Hillman was first Cwm Ogwr female over the line followed closely by Richard LJ. Emma Loyns and Bethan Cross came in together just under the 3 hour mark. All eight of us really enjoyed the event with Bethan even declaring it as her favourite race so far, so I’m sure we’ll be looking to recruit a few more to take on the challenge next year. Just a gentle warning though – it’s almost always the week after Snowdon Marathon so bare that in mind.

 

November 12 – parkruns and Gower Trail Half

 

46 runners across 5 parkruns with 41 of which at Porthcawl were there was a plethora of PB’s. Neil Jones was first finisher for the 3rd time at Porthcawl and beat the club record he already held with a 17:12. Neil Price got the perfect first ever sub 20 with a 19:59 making him the 17th club member to achieved the feat. Joey Howland was just a few seconds off making it 18 members with a PB of 20:11. Daniel Clark smashed his parkrun PB by over a minute which was set on the short Salt Lake Car Park course, so realistically it was a 2 minute PB if only counting times on the original course. Lloyd West also beat his previous best a parkrun by around 2 minutes although this was only his 3rd parkrun. I helped pace Bethan Cross to a 55 second PB with a 26:08. She has knocked over 5 minutes off her parkrun time in just 7 months. Natalie Griffiths ran a late season PB and her fastest time since August 2015 whilst Angela Parry completed the PB list.

 

Away from Porthcawl, Mark Gabb ran at Barry, Shawn and Julie ran at Newport whilst new member Karl Johnson ran at Pontypridd. Shelley took on the super fast Swansea parkrun course and finished as 3rd female overall with her second fastest parkrun time of 22:48.

 

An event that really slipped under the radar for the Blue Wave is the Endurance Life Gower Trail Half Marathon. They also do a 10K, Marathon and Ultra although all distances tend to be very approximate and the events are pricey which is maybe what’s put members off. The Half Marathon is slightly long at 13.6 miles (and probably longer in reality) and includes nearly 2500 feet of elevation – that’s not far off Snowdon Marathon but all the elevation squeezed into half the distance. Simon Harrison and Nicola Symmonds took on the challenge finishing in 2:16 and 2:38 respectively.

 

Sunday 13 November – Cardiff Mo Run 10K and Las Vegas Half Marathon

 

A bumper 22 runners for the Mo Run 10K this year after only having 5 last year and 2 the year before. A fun event with lots of people dressed up and a good atmosphere. A super flat course but not ideal for racing as the paths are narrow in places and it’s very congested at the start. The two lap course also includes a footbridge that is very busy with walkers and cyclists crossing which resulted in bottlenecks and even having to stop for a few seconds. However, despite all this, it was one of the most successful PB races we’ve ever had. Chris Pratt was first club member across the line followed by Josie in a PB time of 48:59 putting her 6th in the female 10K rankings for the club. I was next across the line in what was my 300th event for the club. Mark Gabb came in with a PB time of just under an hour with Matt Murray and Kirstie Ellen picking up PB’s just outside the hour mark. Then came a huge group of PB’s with Nigel H, Tammie, Stephanie, Cath, Angela, Rhiannon W, Nicola A, Llinos, Claire Taylor and Pippa Clark. Myself, Chris Pratt and Mark Worrall all returned part way up the course to run in with some of the girls whilst almost everyone stayed to cheer on the runners in the latter stages.

 

Kelly ran the Las Vegas Half Marathon in 2:01:11 under the bright lights as it’s run in the evening. She commented that it was an amazing atmosphere and the medal was pretty decent as well.

Saturday 19th – parkruns

51 runners across 9 different parkruns. 41 at Porthcawl where despite ‘character building’ weather as Richard LJ would say, several new Cwm Ogwr members who started training with Shelley Smithson attended. Their times ranged from 28 to 37 minutes with first time PB’s for all. Away from Porthcawl, Karl Johnson volunteered as tail runner at Pontypridd, Jayne Powney ran at Forest of Dean whilst new member Joseph Smith (son of Chris Pratt) ran at Cambridge in the fastest time of the day with a 20:23. The Hillmans ran at Cardiff, parkrun tourists Shawn and Julie ran at Llanhydrock, Mark Gabb at Barry, Martin Beard at Gnoll and Dawn Hopkins at the inaugural Llanelli parkrun.

Sunday 20th – Pembrey MT10, Margam Tough 10K and Valencia Marathon

For possibly the first time this year we actually had less members at an event than the previous year. The Pembrey Multi Terrain 10 miler seen 19 of the Blue Wave in attendance compared to 25 last year. The race sold out weeks in advance which I think caught a few out. The race includes a mixture of tarmac, forestry trails and lots of sand including a mile beach section and multiple sand dunes. Niki lead the way in an impressive 41st place and course record for a Cwm Ogwr member.  A few PB’s mainly for those doing their first 10 milers including Graham M, Aled, Wayne, Lloyd, Keith, Josie, Claire DB, James Beynon, Gary Piper, Dawn H, Lucy H and Liz Sim. Emma Loyns was the only non-first timer to set a new PB beating her time from the previous year by 38 seconds.

I ran at the Margam Tough 10K in place of Chris Stanlake who had to drop out through injury. A stunning course around Margam Park going up to the highest point with a mixture of terrain. It lived up to the ‘Tough’ name so I was pleased to finish 34th out of 333 finishers.

Fiona Drysdale ran her first marathon and went for an alternative venue with Valencia her choice. Her impressive time of 4:17 is a club age category record.

Saturday 26th – parkruns

A record 63 runners across 5 parkruns with several more volunteering. 57 at Porthcawl which is also a record for a single parkrun venue and where Brian Cotton was celebrating his 50th parkrun. Conditions were cool (cold some might say) but with minimal wind it made it ideal for going for some speedy times. Sian Price annihilated her own female club record by 68 seconds with a 21:14. Incredibly the old record of 22:22 was smashed twice as Amy Roberts who was the long term record holder became the second club female to break 22 minutes with a 21:53. Jo Kendall, Stephanie Dyke, Catherine Griffiths and Joanne Rowling all also achieved PB’s whilst Richard LJ and Natalie Griffiths secured their best times of 2016.

There was a further PB away from Porthcawl with Katie Wood getting 30:49 at Burnley parkrun. Shawn and Julie continued their tourism at Cwmbran parkrun, the Hillmans were at Cardiff for their 50th parkruns and Dawn ran at Swansea.

Sunday 27th – West Glam XC League Kenfig fixture

The third fixture of the league seen the Blue Wave numbers increase against with 31 in attendance after 20 at the first fixture and 29 at the second fixture. This time it was advertised as a 4.5 mile route taking in the same course as the Bridgend League Kenfig 5K but with the additional mile or so thankfully being an extra loop around the trail part rather than the sand.

Neil Price was first of the Blue Wave back followed by Chris Pratt. Nick Harris, Brian Cotton and Graham Hillman made up the 5 male scorers. As for the ladies, Kelly led them home with Victoria Hillman, Sarah Littlewood, Bethan Cross and Denise Bradley made up the 5 female scorers. Both Bethan and Denise have been in the top 5 in each of the first 3 fixtures.

Chairman’s Male Runner of the Month – Lloyd West

Lloyd started off the month with an impressive 46:21 PB at the Richard Burton 10K which was also his third 10K PB in just 2 months. A week later he followed it up with a huge parkrun PB of 21:38 equating to a 71.65% age grading which is amongst the best in the club. A week later Lloyd got a PB at the Pembrey 10 miler with a 1:22:22 placing him 15th in the male 55+ age category. He wrapped up the month with a great performance at the Kenfig XC finishing as our 9th male runner.

Chairman’s Female Runner of the Month – Emma Loyns

Emma started off the month with 41 second PB at parkrun with a time of 25:21. A day later she ran the tough hilly 14 mile off road Bog n Bryn in Cwmbran showing some nifty footwork whilst running with me along one of the trickier sections and finishing alongside Bethan having thoroughly enjoyed the event. Emma was the only member at the Pembrey 10 miler to beat a previous 10 mile PB and then finished off the month with a run down to parkrun.

Coming up

Hopefully members don’t think Christmas is a time for relaxing. Very important to carbo-load and ‘hydrate’ of course but still a busy month of events. The opening weekend will see a few doubling up with parkrun plus the Aberavon Santa Run whilst there’s plenty of other Santa / Reindeer / Elf fun runs to choose from over the coming weeks. The second weekend see’s one of the highlights of the racing calendar with the Merthyr Mawr Pudding Run which I believe despite selling out in around half an hour, we have over 50 members entered. We have a few doing Cottrell Park 10K the week after and then over the Christmas period there’s the Festive Four competition. This includes a Christmas Eve parkrun, Boxing Day 7K, New Years Eve parkrun and a New Years Day 4 miler. To a non-runner this sounds like the most horrendous idea ever but I think we’ll see quite a few of the Blue Wave getting involved. Merry Christmas everyone!

October 1 – parkruns and the Gower 50

33 runners across 4 parkruns – a little lower than usual due to Cardiff Half Marathon the next day. Bizarrely there were 2 PB’s and both were exactly the same time with Victoria Hillman clocking 23:51 in Cardiff and Jonathan Townend getting the same time at Porthcawl. Victoria’s time made her the 5th club female to go sub 24 this year along with Shelley, Josie, Lorna and Kelly.

Meanwhile Neil J, Tim, Aled, Nick, Brian and Kris were taking on the biggest challenge yet.. a 50 miler around the Gower Peninsula. More than a dozen members headed down to support in various places around the course which was much appreciated by our epic runners. Neil and Tim were the first Cwm Ogwr runners across the line in 11 hours 32 minutes. Aled and Nick came in together at 12 hours 18 minutes having run with Jon Theil and Dan Morgan from Bridgend AC. Brian and Kris had fallen off the group early on and eventually ended up going it alone. Brian finished in 13:26 whilst Kris came in at 15:14. A remarkable feat of both mental and physical endurance.

October 2 – Cardiff Half Marathon,  Keilder Marathon and Bournemouth Marathon

A record 92 runners for this one including Neil, Nick and Kris who had only finished the 50 mile Ultra as little as 12-14 hours earlier. Brave? Bonkers? I’ll let you decide. Niki headed the Blue Wave across the line with a new PB of 1:27:57 putting him second in the club Half Marathon rankings. Clearly with 92 runners this could be a blog post all on its own so you keep it short I’ll list the PBers of which there were a few. Starting with Joey, Wayne, Graham M, Lloyd W, Stephen, David S and Neil Morgan. Our first female was Josie Bishop in a PB time of 1:51:18, just 9 seconds quicker than Eryl James. Nick was the first of the Ultra runners home in 1:52:32. The PB’s continued with Daniel Clark and Denise Bradley coming in well under the 2 hours mark. Denise knocked nearly 8 minutes of her previous best. Within a few minutes of the 2 hour mark were PB’s for James B, Sarah L, Carole B, Sarah B, Liz S and Claire Worthington in her first half for the club.

With Snowdon approaching and other coming back from injury, there were plenty offering to help pace other members and Antony Lewis ended up between Jo Kendall and Diana Purnell who both clocked new personal bests closely followed by Kristy Thomas and Emma W. Kimberley Davies, Jayne P, Shawn C, Matt M and Phillip B were our next PBers. Phillip knocking over 30 minutes off his time having run with his wife, Rhiannon in the March Cardiff Half. Richard LJ was returning from injury and helped Chris Stanlake to a debut half marathon time of just over 2:32. Bethan Cross got a PB in her second half marathon with Kelly G just a few seconds behind. Rhian Kinsella, Rachel Goss, Kimberley T, Emma Gibbs and Karen S all finished between 2:38 and 2:42 with it being the first half marathon for most of them.

Coming in with PB’s at under 3 hours were Tammie, Rhiannon B, Tamara, Jonathan Edwards, Kerry E, Michelle R, Lisa J and Rhian N whilst Louise Bennett, Nicola C and Nicola Allen finished the Blue Wave (Tsunami) that took over Cardiff. Again, most of them running the debut half marathons.

Away from Cardiff with had 2 marathoners with Kirsty Evans taking on the Bournemouth Marathon, and Chris Pratt taking on the Keilder Marathon. Kirsty preparation for Bournemouth wasn’t quite to the coaches rule book as she signed up just a few weeks before and then smashed three significantly long runs within a couple of weeks to prepare having not gone further than half marathon distance previous to that. Incredibly the bonkers preparation worked and Kirsty came in at 4:15:30 – an incredible time for a debut half marathon less than 6 months after starting running.

Meanwhile, Chris Pratt was running his 6 official marathon distance or over of the year. A tough marathon with nearly 2000 feet of ascent spread over multiples hills not dissimilar to Tenby. Despite this Chris managed a new PB of 3:39:14 knocking around 2 and half minutes off his previous best set on the significantly flatter Llanelli course. You can read more about his race weekend here https://chrispratt24.wordpress.com/2016/10/24/kielder-marathon-2016/

 

October 8 – parkruns

A record 55 runners across 5 parkruns with 48 of those at Porthcawl for Aled’s 50 parkrun. Natalie Griffiths had arranged for more than a dozen masks of Aled’s face to made which came as quite a shock to Aled when we emerged from the Pavilion. As for the run itself, Peter Walsh, Josie, Jonathan T (second week in a row), Mark Gabb (paced by Nick H who ran without shoes on?!), Liz S and Ian L. Bethan Cross knocked almost 2 minutes off her PB paced by myself. Dai Power clocked a new parkrun PB for the first time in around 2 years and got agonisingly close to sub 30 with a 30:05. Kim D, Rhiannon Whitely and Tammie also got PB’s in a hugely successful morning for the Blue Wave. Maybe everyone was running faster to get away from the Aled masks.

Away from Porthcawl, Neil J ran yet another sub 18 time at Pontypridd, Graham Hillman got a PB at Cardiff, Shawn and Julie continued their parkrun tourism with Lydney whilst Sarah B and Martin C were at Swindon.

 

Sunday 9 – Gnoll XC and Oxford Half Marathon

The second fixture of the West Glam XC league took us to the Gnoll Country Park on a lapped course that included various terrain, a small stream and a few inclines. A bigger turnout than the Llanmadoc fixture with 14 male and 15 female members in attendance. Jamie, Neil P, Simon H, Graham H and myself made up the 5 scorers for the men’s team on the two lap 5.6 mile course, whilst Victoria, Denise, Nicola P, Bethan and June made up the female scorers on the female team. We have over a dozen members running their first XC fixture and hoping that number continues to grow throughout the season.

 

Wayne and Graham M ran their second half marathon in as many weeks with the Oxford Half Marathon. Wayne was just 34 seconds slower than his time the previous week whilst Graham knocked around 2 minutes off his time for his second Half Marathon PB.

 

Saturday 15 – parkruns

 

49 runners across 6 parkruns with 42 at Porthcawl. Another barrage of PB’s with Neil P, Jonathan T (third week in a row), Mark Gabb (second week in a row), James B, Nigel, Gary P, Matt Murray, Kimberley T and Rachel G. Away from Porthcawl, Kevin ran a seasons best at Swansea, Chris and Amy Roberts were at Stretford, Neil J and Neil H were at Pontypridd, Ellen was at Penrhyn and Saul was at Southampton.

 

Sunday 16 – Ponty Plod, Manchester and Great Birmingham Half Marathons

The second annual Ponty Plod 11 miler seen Antony Lewis as first of the Blue Wave across the line with newest member Sian Price 6 female overall. Christie and Mark W made up our four runners on the off road, hilly course which served as good preparation for them in their upcoming Snowdon Marathon.

Kirstie Edwards got a late place for the Great Birmingham Run and smashed her PB. Chris and Amy Roberts ran together in the inaugural Manchester Half Marathon with Amy clocking a new PB of 1:45:24 putting her second in the club female half marathon rankings.

Saturday 22 – parkruns

47 runners across 5 parkruns with 39 at Porthcawl. This was Aunty Pat’s 100th parkrun with the theme being frilly knickers for the girls and mankini’s for the boys – strictly to be worn on outside of clothing I should add! Plenty of people got involved with myself, Aled, Dai K, Richard G, Christie C and Mark W all wearing green mankini’s whilst several of the girls wore frilly knickers over their running gear.

 

Peter Walsh clocked his second parkrun PB of the month having also got a PB at Cardiff Half Marathon and a great performance at the XC. I ended up unintentionally pacing both Sian P and Shelley which ended up with Sian breaking the female club record which had stood for well over a year with a 22:22 which was also a 1 second PB having run a parkrun just before joining the club, and Shelley moved up to third place in the female rankings with a 22:34 which was also the second fastest this year. Josie Bishop also beat her PB with a 23:05 making it 3 of the fastest times by female members in the history of the club all in one parkrun. James B, Ian L and Matt Murray all clocked their second parkrun PB’s of the month whilst Nicola Allen got the perfect sub 40 (39:59) with Pippa and Claire T also notching up new personal bests.

Away from Porthcawl, Alana Charles ran her first parkrun in several weeks at Stevenage, Neil Harris clocked a seasons best at Pontypridd and Angela ran at Reigate Priory parkrun. We also had 5 runners at Barry Island parkrun where Neil J was first finisher making it the 4 parkrun he’s finished in first place adding it to Grangemoor, Pontypridd and Porthcawl. parkrun tourist enthusiasts Kris D, Shaun C, Chris S and Julie also ran at Barry.

Sunday 23 – Porthcawl 4K TT and Stroud Half Marathon

The final fixture of the Bridgend League seen a relay event along the parkrun course in Porthcawl. To make it a bit different, everyone signed up individually and was allocated a team through a draw meaning we had some teams with 3 different clubs represented and teams with sub 18 runners and +40 minute runners together. A bitterly cold morning at Porthcawl and a few last minute adjustments to teams as inevitably not everyone turned up. Unfortunately it meant that some teams had to run with 2 runners with the relay element was just a bit of fun and it was individual leg times that would count for overall scoring.

No prizes for guessing that Neil J was our fastest runner clocking 13:54 for the 4K course. He missed out on being the fastest overall by just a few seconds. Kirsty Evans was our fastest female in her first club race since Bournemouth Marathon with a 18:32 suggesting her 5K time of 24:17 is set to be smashed in the near future. I multiplied up our results to see what sort of times we could see at 5K from some of our members, and apart from Kirsty, there were particularly fast relative times for Denise, Fiona E, Emma L, Bethan C, Shawn C, Emma W, Kim D, Dai P, Kim T, Tammie and Rhiannon B. All would get PB’s at parkrun if they could keep that pace going for the full 5K. In Kirsty, Bethan, Shawn, Emma and Kim T’s cases, it would be by over a minute.

As for the relay team results, Fiona Evans was part of the winning team whilst a mix up meant Chris Pratt’s team were awarded 3rd place but actually finished 6th – however, it meant another Cwm Ogwr member Dan Clark was in the actual 3rd placed team.

Cwm Ogwr finished 3rd for that particular event with Brackla winning their first event of the series. We finished 3rd in the overall league standings with a comfortable gap over 4th placed Cornelly and not too far behind runners up, Brackla. In the individual competition, Neil J finished 3rd.

Wayne Hayhurst ran his 3rd Half Marathon of the month with Stroud the venue this time where he clocked 1:40:11. Remarkably, all three half marathons were within 54 seconds of each other despite very different courses.

Saturday 29 – Snowdon marathon and parkruns

Despite so many either running or supporting at the Snowdon Marathon, we still had 33 parkrunners across 5 different parkruns. 24 of which were at Porthcawl where Ian Lewis and Ellen got PB’s and Angela Walsh ran her first event as a Cwm Ogwr runner having transferred from Porthcawl Runners. Elsewhere Zoe Tee ran at Ashton Court, Dawn, Shawn and Julie were at Cardiff, Chris S was at Lanhydrock (notable for being one of the toughest parkruns) and Mark Gabb was at Barry.

Meanwhile, myself, Aled, Dai and Jayne Kembery were on our way to Snowdon to support our runners and left in time to do the Dolgellau parkrun along the way. There were just 32 runners and I led for a few seconds early on before Dai took the reins and I dropped back. Despite some pressure from a fast youngster and another runner who briefly took the lead, Dai ended up being first finisher to add his name to the very short list of Cwm Ogwr ‘winners’. Aled was 4th whilst I finished 6th which is no doubt the highest 3 Cwm Ogwr finishers in a single parkrun.

 

On we went to Snowdon where 24 brave souls were getting ready to tackle one of the toughest road marathons in the UK. Close to 3000 feet of elevation spread over 26.2 miles. Several other supporters were already there for the weekend who we seen on our travels around the course. Our first stop was the 6 mile point which is just after the runners have conquered their first major hill up to Pen y Pass and are on the descent into the valley below. Dai had made signs whilst Aled had a megaphone at the ready. We met Fao, Jonathan, Janet and the Lowcock James there to cheer through every single runner from first to last. Plenty of smiles, high fives and hugs at this point. The atmosphere was electric despite only a couple of dozens supporters including the ever supportive Run 4 All crew. With 24 runners plus other local Bridgend based runners to cheer on as well as our friends in Pontypridd, Run 4 All and Lliswerry, barely a few seconds went passed without us pointing out another runner. I think between us we probably called out 90% of the runners names which were on their bibs. Every one of our runners looking strong at this point.

 

With the last runner through and roads reopened we made our way to Waun Fach – the final hill which stretches on from mile 22. With no access up the hill by car, we had to park at the bottom and walk the 2 miles to the top – even that was tough – at this point I wasn’t too envious of the runners who were due to tackle this after 22 miles having already climbed two significant hills. We put signs up along the way attached to walls and lampposts and headed to the proper summit of the hill. I say proper summit as at mile 24 it levels out slightly for an off road section which lulls you into a false sense that all the hills are done, but there’s actually another incline to come at around 24.5 miles. As we walked up the hill, the leader went passed which was an incredible sight to see someone probably running up that steep hill at what would probably be my pace on the flat.

 

When we seen the runners come through at mile 6, we estimated Neil was in about 50-60th place so we were stunned when after just 20 odd runners had passed he came through. A quick check of the watch suggested it was going to be very close to 3 hours dead. As expected, there was quite a significant gap to our next runner. I managed to get internet signal just long enough to suggest Kevin would be next up and decided to go back down the hill to find him and just as I was about to turn back, I seen Chris Pratt. Kevin was a few minutes later and then our runners started coming in at regular intervals. Some looking stronger than others but all having put in an incredible effort and relieved to finally be nearing the top. Some plodded on whilst others gave high fives or stopped for a quick hug before carrying on.

 

We decided to start walking back down after around 5 hours had passed since the start and seen Dai Power and Helen Griffiths along the way. We actually ended up seeing every runner from first to last again. Some incredible scenes were witnessed from the leader charging up the hill as if it wasn’t there, to an 82 year old runner from Port Talbot who was one of the few who didn’t walk on that final incline. Jayne’s highlight was seeing Shane Williams who many of runners can claim to have beaten as he struggled round in over 5 hours. Another guy has completed all 30 odd Snowdonia Marathons and one woman had a dog with her who had apparently completed 13 marathons. The woman was in her 70’s and had completed Snowdonia 18 times and said she had a few more left in her.

Finally with some internet signal we started going through the times. Neil J had finished 23rd overall with a time of 3:00:26. He was delighted with the 23rd placed finish but gutted about the 26 seconds over a time that most of us can only dream of. Chris Pratt finished in 3:43:08 – less than 4 minutes slower his PB set in Keilder just 4 weeks earlier and 24 minutes faster than his time the previous year. Kevin dipped under hours whilst Nick Harris who’d been out injured for a couple of weeks came in at 4:12 ahead of Richie Pett and Chris Williams. Kris Denholm ran a credible 4:20 just 4 weeks after the Gower 50 whilst Martin Beard got 4:24 only 6 weeks after completing Ironman Wales.

Lorna was our first female runner home in 4:39 closely followed by Neil M on his marathon debut. Kelly finished in 4:48 knocking a massive 27 minutes off her time the previous year with Snowdon first timer Christie just a couple of minutes behind despite injury limiting his training for the event. Denise Bradley and Rob Pritchard on his marathon debut both finished in 4:51 whilst Heather and Richard Garratt finished in PB times of 4:54 and 4:57 respectively having run 5:15 in their first and only marathon the year before. Caerwyn finished in 5:15 in his marathon debut whilst Liz completed her first Snowdon Marathon in 5:17.

Our most experienced Snowdon Marathoner, Fiona ran the course in 5:21 with Gary Piper in tow finishing a minute behind. Mark Worrall and Kirstie Ellen finished closed together in 5:26 and 5:27 respectively in what was a debut marathon for Mark. Dai Power ran his fastest marathon of the three he’s done this year with a 5:59 whilst Helen Griffiths completed her debut marathon in 6:12.

Amazingly, it looks like we’ll have even more signing up next year with 25 rooms already booked. In case you are interested, Chris has wrote an excellent blog about the weekend and race here https://chrispratt24.wordpress.com/2016/11/05/snowdonia-marathon-eryri-2016/

 

Sunday 30 – Worksop Halloween Half Marathon

A rare Sunday with only one runner. Matt Murray ran this event in 2:25:06 in his first half marathon with the club.

Chairman’s Male Runner of the Month – Neil Jones

He’s pretty much in contention every month and for the second time this year, I’m going to have pick Neil. Having never gone beyond marathon distance, Neil completed the Gower 50 at the start of the month and stuck by his mate Tim throughout sacrificing a quicker time for himself. He then still did the Cardiff HM the day after. He followed this up with a first finish at Barry parkrun and a second placed finish at the Porthcawl 4K TT which helped him to third overall in the individual standings and first senior. All of this topped of with the phenomenal 3:00:26 and 23rd placed finish in the Snowdon Marathon.

Chairman’s Female Runner of the Month – Kirstie Ellen

After running Cardiff Half Marathon with Louise and Nicola in just over 3 hours at the start of the month, Kirstie managed to get a last minute place for Snowdon Marathon. As part of training for this she completed the Great Birmingham Run in a new personal best time. Kirstie had run a marathon before but this was the first one in a while and she smashed her PB. Oh, and did I mention she only gave birth 7 months ago so has only been back in training since then. Amazing.

September 1 – Parc Slip

 

The 4th fixture of the Bridgend League seen a new event at Parc Slip. A record attendance of 83 for this one! There was some confusion over the distance as initially it was advertised as a 4 mile run and then due to an enforced change in the course we were told it was ‘nearer 5K’. I think a lot of people missed the ‘nearer’ bit so had a bit of a shock when it turned out to be around 3.5 miles. Neil Jones finished 4th overall but as there were two guest runners, he was 2nd in terms of scoring for league purposes.  This was a day after finishing 2nd in a tough off road hilly half marathon. As usual, there’s a few too many runners to go through every result but a great effort by all and plenty of support for each other with an out and back early on and a couple of other sections were you passed runners going the opposite way. Banana, water, welsh cake and hot drink for all finishers went down very well. A great event which I hope they repeat in the league next year.

 

September 3 – parkruns and Roman Run

 

50 runners across 5 different parkruns. Starting with the tourists for a change, we had Chris Pratt in Sunderland, Wayne in Swansea, David Sheard in Bryn Bach ahead of the Roman Run, and Aled, Kris and Brian in Grangemoor. Our Grangemoor runners were doing the parkrun before going on to run to Nash Point along the coastal path as a 30ish mile training run for the Gower 50. Jamie Vanstone joined them at the starting point of the Vale Ultra to run the whole course ‘just for fun’… 32 miles of it!

 

Back at Porthcawl there were 44 runners for Chris Roberts 100 parkrun. It was also Jackie Lewis’s 150. Niki Puleio was first Cwm Ogwr runner home back in 19:34. The girls dominated the PB’s with Kirsty Evans, Josie Bishop, Dawn Hopkins, Bethan (paced by Kelly and Heather), Mandie Owen, Rhian Peacock and Sharon Delahunty. The final 3 mentioned all doing their first parkruns for the club. Anne Lalic and Chris Stanlake took up the new tail runner volunteer role.

 

David Sheard, Gary Piper and Mark Worrall ran the 16 mile Roman Run from Brecon to Merthyr in horrendous wet and windy conditions. Gary took a tumble in the early miles and dislocated his shoulder but incredibly carried on and completed the race before going off to A&E to get it sorted out.

 

The 401 Marathons

 

For those who don’t know about this, Ben Smith is attempting to run 401 marathons in 401 days in various locations throughout the UK. He is raising money for two anti-bullying charities and is now into his final few weeks of the challenge. He did miss a week earlier this year due to an increasingly painful injury that could have caused long term damage had he not rested, but he is now looking to make up the lost mileage by tagging extra miles onto some of the remaining marathons.

 

On Friday 2 September the venue was Neath with Run 4 All helping organise the marathon route for the day. Chris Pratt went along and had originally intended to run the full marathon but other commitments meant he had to change his plans to running the first 8 miles. Sian Tossell joined in for the Gnoll parkrun part of the route as well. He was in Merthyr on the Saturday and then Pontypridd on the Sunday where Dai Power and I went over to meet him and run the Reverse 10 miler which he would be using for the first 10 miles of his run. More on the race below. Then on Monday 5 September, Ben ran a double out and back marathon course from Pontcanna Fields following the Taff Trail north. Chris Pratt joined him for the entire run which was organised by Les Croupiers Running Club.

 

September 4 – Reverse 10

 

Organised by Pontypridd Roadents, this was an event that have seen a small selection of Cwm Ogwr runners do over the past 3 years. The race is called the ‘Reverse’ because apparently when they first ran the event, someone put the mile marks out in reverse order so instead of saying mile 1 after a mile, it said mile 9. They stuck with this and it’s the only race I’ve done where the mile markers count down. However, due to some building works, the Reverse 10 course had to be reversed! So it started from what would normally be the turnaround point before heading towards the old start / finish and looping back… still with me?!

 

Anyway, as mentioned above, Ben Smith, the 401 marathon guy was there so Dai Power and I managed to get a selfie with him before the start and wished him good luck. The 10 mile had a long incline after 1 mile which sapped the energy from the legs early before a reasonably flat out and back barring a few humpback bridges. The route was a mixture of gravelly / stoney paths and cycle track. I decided to go for it but fell just 40 seconds short of my time from Neath 10 miler with a 1:14:16 – 2 weeks later I’m still debating whether it was actually a PB or not as most of us measured the Neath 10 miler that year as being about 0.2 miles short which doesn’t sound like a lot, but is more than 40 seconds worth. After finishing I got a post-race selfie with Ben before heading off to run the final mile or so with Dai who finished in 1:58:59.

 

September 5 – Rose Inn Relays

 

26 runners for this one which caused a bit of an issue. Teams of 3 required so that left us one short. A volunteer was needed to step in to run twice. Realistically there were 3 likely candidates – me, Christie or Nick.. but you couldn’t run for the same team twice which counted out Christie and Nick so I ended up taking one for the team. Let’s be honest, I didn’t need much convincing although did start wondering if it was such a good idea shortly after getting my two race numbers. On the positive side it was only 1.9 miles per leg… on the downside, it was only 1.9 miles per leg meaning pretty much a faster than 5K pace sprint a day after pushing for a 10 mile PB.

 

Nick ran the fastest leg of the day in the first leg. Given I was running 3 on his team, this meant less recovery for me. Kevin ran the second fastest leg whilst I ran both the 3 and 4 fastest. My second leg was actually 7 seconds fastest than my first which helped the team of Nick, Christie and I finish as first Cwm Ogwr team across the line. Aled had signed us up as was supposed to be part of the team and had called us “Bridgend Athletic A”! Some great performances throughout the field and in true Cwm Ogwr spirit Ian Lewis accompanied our final runner Angela Parry on the last leg whilst a few more of us joined for the latter stages. We later discovered that David Sheard. Jackie Lewis and Ian Lewis won the over 50’s all-comers prize which Diana Purnell collected on their behalf.

 

September 6 – Tuska Beach 5K

 

A late cancelation of the Sandy Bay 5K that Porthcawl were organising meant that Pencoed Tri stepped in to do a Beach 5K instead. The plan was that it would start at Rest Bay and go down to Pink Bay and back but the tides had different ideas so the course had to be amended to a 2 lap ‘just under 5K’. I think most of us expected that to still be 3 miles but I don’t think anyone was complaining when it only turned out to be 2.6 miles. Fortunately the sand was quite firm which allowed for some speedy times. What we didn’t expect was having to run through quite a bit of water further up the beach on both laps. To be fair, there was a mention of ‘bring dry shoes’ from the organisers.

 

49 Cwm Ogwr runners for this one. A combination of some not being keen on running on sand and mainly the early start time of 6:30pm meant a smaller attendance for Cwm Ogwr although still by far the most represented club there. Neil Jones set of like a rocket and lead from start to finish to win his first event outside of parkrun. Kelly Owen was first female home just ahead of Shelley who is on the comeback trail after several weeks out injured. After finishing 3 of the 6 teams at Parc Slip last week, we improved to finish 2 in this fixture and are now within catching distance of second placed Brackla ahead of the final event.

 

September 10th – parkruns

 

48 runners across 4 parkruns. Saul ran at Southampton, Shawn and Julie were at Reading whilst Neil returned to his home parkrun of Pontypridd finishing 2 to Daniel Bodman who is a sub 16 runner. Neil’s time of 17:26 was his fastest on that course and the 11 time he’s run under 18 minutes.

 

Back at Porthcawl there were 44 runners lead home for the second week in a row by Niki Puleio. It was Nick Harris’s 150 parkrun and he celebrated with his 21 sub 20 time whilst Dave Evans ran a seasons best of 19:49 making it a trio of club members under the 20 minute mark. Josie Bishop was first club female back with a parkrun PB of 24:10 which puts her 9 in the female rankings. Kristy Thomas ran her first parkrun with the club with a swift 27:22 whilst Seanne Sandford, Natasha Hodgson and Nicola Allen got first timer PB’s. Jonathan Edwards ran his first parkrun in over a year so automatically got a seasons best time.

 

September 11 – Cardiff 10K, Great North Run and Glynneath Triathlon

 

78 runners at the Cardiff 10K which is a record outside of parkrun / Bridgend League. With 2 at the Great North Run and Sian Tossell completing the Glynneath Triathlon it meant Cwm Ogwr had clocked up 342 individual results in the first 11 days of September which includes 135 DIFFERENT members! That’s 80% of our membership with many of them running 2 or 3 events, or 6 in my case.

 

At the Great North Run Dawn ran 2:23 after slowing towards the end to help her running buddy who was struggling with injury. Helen Griffiths was just a couple of minutes behind and broke her 3 year old PB with a 2:25:58. Helen has now clocked 5K, 10K, 10 mile and HM bests this year.

 

Back at Cardiff Neil Jones was first Cwm Ogwr runner back in a phenomenal 35:44. Amazingly, such is Neils determination to get even faster, he was actually disappointed with this. Niki Puleio became the second Cwm Ogwr runner to break the sub 40 barrier with a 38:26 whilst Aled knocked over a minute off his PB but just missed out on sub 40 with a 40:13. Back in 2013 I ran a then club record of 44:17 at Cardiff – this year we had 11 runners under that mark which helped us finish 4th, 7th and 10th in the team competition.

 

Despite the recent return from injury, Shelley clocked a PB of 50:06 and was first Cwm Ogwr female back with Kirsty coming in with a PB not far behind. Helen Davies was 10th in the F55+ category with a brilliant 52:10 and Jackie Lewis was 9th in the F60+ category. Our highest male age category finisher was Kevin with 16th place in the M55+.

 

There were 47 PB’s in total plus several season’s best times. More than a dozen of the blue wave were either running their first 10K for the club or first 10K ever.

 

Still to come

 

This weekend see’s the blue wave descend on Swansea 10K whilst Martin Beard makes his Ironman debut at Tenby. The following weekend will see Cwm Ogwr compete officially for the first time in the West Glamorgan Cross Country league at Llandmadoc whilst a few are off to Scotland to do the Loch Ness Marathon. Best of luck to everyone.

Saturday 17 – parkruns

52 runners across 3 parkruns. Away from Porthcawl Fiona Drysdale ran Pontypridd parkrun whilst Niki Puleio set a new PB with a ’18:39 at Southampton parkrun. There was a new record attendance at Porthcawl with 50 of the Blue Wave running. Last months Male Runner  of the Month Jamie Vanstone clocked his first sub 20 time with a PB of 19:57 whilst Dai Kembery beat a 2 year old PB with a 20:40. The PB meant he has achieved the Grand Slam of PB’s this year – 5K, 5 miles, 10K, 10 miles, Half Marathon and Marathon.  Last months Female Runner of the Month Juliet Amner also notched a PB of 25:07 which is a club age category record. Dawn Hopkins got her third parkrun PB in a row whilst I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone so happy with a PB as Sian Llewellyn Goring was as she smashed her PB to go sub 30 for the first time by some margin.

Sunday 18 – Swansea 10K

33 runners for this one led home by Neil in 36:29 followed by a trio of PB’s from Wayne, Graham and Lloyd. Then it was the turn of the girls with an incredible 5 of them going sub 50 and all clocking PB’s. Shelley clocked the 3rd fastest female club time ever with a 48:17 followed by PB’s for Josie, Victoria, Claire DB and Juliet. The PB’s continued with Gary, Elizabeth, Shawn, June, Kimberley D, Julie, Anne, Louise and James. A special mention for Dawn Hopkins and Sian LG who made it 2 PB’s in 2 days!

Saturday 24 – parkruns, Disneyland 5K and Black Mountains Ultra

43 runners across 6 parkruns. Dai K ran in Falkirk whilst Nick H ran Inverness. Mark Gabb ran his first parkrun for the club at Barry Island (which is his home parkrun), Neil set a course best at Pontypridd parkrun with the Hillman’s also in attendance whilst Lisa J was at Colby. That left 36 at Porthcawl for the annual Elvis themed parkrun. Kelly, Pat, Jackie, Natalie and Heather wore inflatable ‘fat Elvis’ costumes which were very popular with the photographers in attendance and made the local papers.

Emma Loyns, Sarah Webb and Dawn Hopkins were in Disneyland for part 1 of the running festival there where they ran an early morning 5K event with their children and accompanied by Disney characters.

Jamie Vanstone decided to sign up for the Black Mountains Ultra just a few days beforehand. A roughly 36 mile Ultra with 7500 feet of elevation!! That’s the equivalent of climbing to the summit of Snowdon from Llanberis almost 3 times. Jamie completed the course in just under 8 and a half hours and is already looking at signing up for the next event in the series which is a marathon around the Brecon Beacons with 5500 feet of ascent.

Sunday 25 – Loch Ness 10K / Marathon, Bristol HM, Disneyland HM, Forest of Dean HM, West Glam XC, Ponty Aquathon

Cwm Ogwr runners at 7 different events across 4 countries! Starting in Scotland where Jayne Kembery ran the Loch Ness River 10K in 1:06:22 improving on her recent Cardiff 10K time. In the Marathon, Niki Puleio clocked 3:17 in his debut marathon putting him second to Neil in the marathon rankings. Nick Harris came in just under the 3:30 mark whilst Dai Kembery knocked a massive 10 minutes off his PB for a 3:30. Our final runner was Melanie Thomas who ran her debut marathon in an excellent 4:45.

Over in France, Emma and Dawn ran the Disneyland Half Marathon. Time wasn’t a priority and they thoroughly enjoyed the experience and I’m sure have convinced a few other members to sign up next year.

The Hillmans were at Bristol Half Marathon with PB’s for both. Graham picked up his first sub 1:40 time with a 1:39:00 whilst Victoria came in at 1:54:46.

Christie Coleman ran the Autumn Forest of Dean Half Marathon. A two lap off road half marathon with a very reasonable entry fee. He came in at 2:16:58.

Helen Griffiths completed the Ponty Aquathlon to add yet another multi-discipline event to her list. As a speedy swimmer she was actually first out of the pool after the 400m swim in her wave before being caught by some speedier runners on the 5K run.

The biggest attendance of the day was at Llanmadoc for the first fixture of the West Glamorgan Cross Country League with 20 Cwm Ogwr runners. This was our first fixture being part of the league. The course was 4.5 miles across multi-terrain with a few small sand dunes to contend with before heading onto the beach for an impossibly long 2 mile stretch into a very strong headwind. Kevin was first back followed by Simon, myself, Peter Walsh and Wayne who made up the 5 scoring positions. Martin and Chris R were close behind which meant they reduced the points available for rival teams so even if you aren’t in the top 5, you still make a difference. Captain Richard LJ, Gary P and Dai Power completed the male club runners.

There was an even split of male and female runners with 10 each and considering there were only 102 women in total then we were well represented despite the fact this will probably be our lowest attendance. Kelly was our first runner back followed by Denise, Fiona, Diana and Bethan who made up the 5 scorers. Kirstie, Natalie, Pat, Claire T and Pippa all fantastically represented the Blue Wave. We’ve already taken over parkrun and the Bridgend League in terms of attendance.. now lets get the West Glam League as well.

Chairman’s Male Runner(s) of the Month – Niki Puleio and Dai Kembery

I’ve resisted choosing two in the past but impossible to split these two who have had phenomenal success this month. PB’s for both at 5K with Niki setting another sub 19 time whilst Dai finally broke a PB that had stood for over 2 years. At the Cardiff 10K, Niki became only the second Cwm Ogwr runner to go sub 40 whilst Dai beat his PB set on the same course a year earlier. Then both rounded off the month with marathon PB’s with Niki setting the second fastest ever debut marathon time for the club and Dai knocking 10 minutes off his PB after already knocking 12 minutes off earlier this year at Brighton Marathon. Both have also represented the club in the Bridgend League this month with Niki our second runner across the line at Parc Slip whilst Dai was a top 15 scorer at both Parc Slip and Tuska Beach.

Chairman’s Female Runner of the Month – Dawn Hopkins

A very busy and successful  month for Dawn. Two PB’s at 5K making it 3 in a row including one from last month. Dawn also did a double PB weekend with a 10K PB at Swansea a day after one of the parkrun PB’s. Dawn gave up the chance of a good time at the Great North Run by helping her running buddy who was struggling with injury in the latter stages. Dawn also ran at the two Bridgend League fixtures this month, ran a great leg at the Rose Inn Relays and then rounded off the month with a well deserved couple of fun runs in Disneyland with a 5K and Half Marathon.

Saturday 6 – parkruns

42 runners across 3 parkruns. A massive 39 at Porthcawl which is our second biggest attendance there after we had 46 at the 3rd anniversary run.  Joey Howland, Wayne Hayhurst, Graham Hillman, Victoria Hillman, Julie Webster, Nerys Jenkins and Karen Saunders ran PB’s whilst Natalie Griffiths ran a seasons best which was also a best time in 11 months. Victoria’s time was good enough to put her in the top 10 in the female 5K rankings. Julie Webster finally ran her first parkrun – for those that don’t know, she’s not exactly a beginner having done long course weekend, Ironman’s and is our female club record holder at Half Marathon and Marathon distance. Nerys knocked 52 seconds off her PB and was running her first parkrun since 2011. Karen knocked 48 seconds off her parkrun best.

It was David Kembery’s 100th parkrun but no PB attempt after running down with Melanie as part of marathon training. Chris Pratt, Gareth Richards (who also ran home), myself, Emma Loyns, Liz Davies, Fiona Evans and Steve Riddler carried out a nicely coordinated plan to all meet a different points to run the final few miles down together.

Away from Porthcawl, Julie and Shawn ran at Ashton Court parkrun in Bristol whilst David Sheard ran Pontefract parkrun which had a bumper attendance due to the 401 marathon team being there.

Sunday 7 – Gloucester Marathon and Brecon 10 miler

The inaugural Gloucester marathon was marathon number 7 in under 16 months for Antony who bagged his second marathon PB of the year with a 3:57. Jamie Vanstone was running his 3rd marathon or longer in just 6 weeks which included a 69 mile Ultra. His race didn’t quite go to plan today but still an great effort with 4:34. Wayne was running his second marathon of the year having done the Great Welsh Marathon in Llanelli and finished in a time of 4:15. Keith Coleman was running his second marathon in four weeks and beat his time from Tenby by over 10 minutes.

There were 23 of the Blue Wave at Brecon 10 miler where Niki Puleio broke his own 10 mile club record with a 1:06:34. Only 6 of the 23 had run a 10 mile race previously so it was guaranteed to be PB’s galore and there were excellent times across the board. Kirsty Evans was first Cwm Ogwr female across the line and was less than a minute off breaking the female club record which dates back to August 2013. There were age category club records for Fiona Drysdale and Denise Bradley. Special mention for Dai Power who had a stormer coming in at 1:49:48. Many were also using the event as an ideal training run for Port Talbot and Severn Bridge Half Marathons later in the month.

Saturday 13 – parkruns

45 runners across 3 parkruns which is just 1 below our record. 43 of which were at Porthcawl for Natalie Griffiths 100th parkrun which several Cwm Ogwr members wore fancy dress for to celebrate. There were PB’s for Lloyd West, Ellen Wyn Evans, Matthew Hopkins, Chris West and last months runner of the month, Pippa Clark. Elsewhere, Jamie Vanstone got a PB at Cardiff parkrun whilst Ann Davies ran at Colby.

Sunday 14 – Cottrell Park 10K

A quiet Sunday for a change with just 3 runners at this one. 61 of our runners had done part of the course in the relays back in May but clearly the thought of running ‘Bunker Hill’ as part of a longer race wasn’t too appealing. Also worth pointing out that many were doing final long runs before upcoming half marathons, marathons or ultra’s. Back to the race and Jamie Vanstone ran the course in a swift 46 minutes whilst Daniel Clark clocked just over 51 minutes which is quicker than doubling his 5K best at the time. Christie came in just under the hour mark but had done a lot of mileage in the previous few days again as part of marathon training.

Saturday 20 – parkruns and Welsh 5K Championships

A record 50 runners across 4 parkruns. Ellen Wyn Evans ran at the beautiful setting of Penrhyn Castle which Chris and I did a few weeks ago, Neil Harris ran his first parkrun in 3 months at Pontypridd, Ceri and Jackie ran at the Gnoll whilst there were a record 46 at Porthcawl. Due to a combination of wind, rain and high tide, it meant for only the second time in 177 Porthcawl parkruns that they had to use the second contingency course which means 4 and a bit laps of Salt Lake Car Park. This week was Peter’s 100th parkrun where the theme was ‘short shorts’. There were some fantastic efforts and I think the boys may out outdone the girls this week with Aled, Daniel and myself all wearing worryingly small, tight shorts (in my case, actually boxer shorts).

As for the running bit, a miscalculation meant the course was a little short which in turn meant a lot of personal bests and seasons bests although a few still would have achieved them on an accurately measured course so don’t want to take anything away. Incredibly Neil Jones equaled his club record time of 17:21 despite having run 20+ miles to Porthcawl. Graham and Wayne achieved their first sub 21 minute times whilst Daniel Clark knocked over 3 minutes off his PB from a few weeks ago. Peter came agonisingly close to beating his PB which has stood for 14 months, missing out by 2 seconds but still recording a second best time ever parkrun time. Kelly recorded her best time in over a year with a 23:59.

Diana Purnell smashed her PB by almost a minute with a 26:03 whilst Dawn Hopkins achieved a seasons best. A massive well done to our 3 new parkrunners with Kristie, Nina and Martyn. Completing the huge list of PB’s were Shawn, Jamie B, Chris S, Julie R, Matthew H, Angela and Rhiannon W.

That evening was the Welsh 5K Championships where Juliet Amner had signed up for the womens race with the exciting prospect of a medal as the age categories were split into 5 year segments like in parkrun. I didn’t intend running and only decided last minute to go down to support… only to end up signing up to run in the men’s race along with Christie. Neither Christie or I were near PB times and finished 78th and 74th respectively out of 80 runners which is unsurprising given this was the best Wales (or at least South Wales) had to offer. The winning time was 14:38 and 58 of the 80 runners in the men’s race finished sub 20. The guy who finished 2 seconds behind me who I needed a sprint finish to pip to line was in the 75+ category. I’d be happy with running 42 minutes at that age let alone 22 minutes!

An agonising wait afterwards as they went through all the age category top 3’s to find out if Juliet had got a medal… and she did! Second place and a SILVER medal in the women’s 55-59 category – amazing. Worth reiterating this was a National championship so a pretty major medal to win. She also smashed her 5K PB with a 25:09.

Sunday 21 – Port Talbot Half Marathon, Merthyr 10K, Tuska Tri and Cotswold Challenge

16 runners at the ‘inaugural’ Port Talbot Half Marathon. I say ‘inaugural’ because there has been a free half marathon run on the same course for a few years but in the opposite direction to this one, however, this was the first time it had been official with pre-entries, an officially measured course and chip timing. All at a very reasonable £15 for affiliated runners which included a medal, shirt and goodie bag. We probably would have had a lot more runners but a few had already signed up for the Severn Bridge HM a week later before entries for this one opened.

The course follows gravel paths and cycle tracks around the beautiful setting of Afan Argoed. The first 6.5 miles were a mostly gentle descent before a short sharp zig zag hill in the middle, followed by a shallow but constant incline for the second half. Nick was our first runner back in 1:38 whilst our first female back was Kirsty Evans in 1:54. As described, it wasn’t an ideal course for going for PB’s but Gareth Richards, Lloyd West and Neil Morgan were all recorded as PB’s with it being their first half with the club. Gary Piper improved on his Swansea by several minutes whilst despite the tougher course than Swansea, Denise beat her PB by 3 minutes.

Dawn Hopkins and June Parry ran the Merthyr 10K coming in at 57 minutes. Lorna and Helen Griffiths entered the Tuska Tri which due to sea conditions was changed to a Duathlon with a 5K run at the start instead of the sea swim. That actually worked out very well for them as Lorna ran her fastest time in over 2 years whilst Helen got a PB before going onto do the bike and then a 2.5K run to finish. Natalie Griffiths also did the bike leg as part of a team. Richie Pett completed the Cotswold Challenge Triathlon which was a roughly Half Ironman distance event – a great effort considering by his own admission he’d done very little training since his Ironman back in May.

Saturday 27 – parkruns, Llantwit 10K and Narbeth Nobbler

Yet another record attendance with 52 runners across 4 parkruns. The parkruns were part of ‘I am team GB’ day with many runners wearing GB / union jack / red, white and blue. Signs and t-shirts were also handed out with several of the blue wave getting involved. We now top the table at Porthcawl parkrun for most different members who’ve run there (159) and number of runs between us (3424).

Neil was first at Porthcawl and only missed out on his PB by 1 second. Gareth Richards got a PB with another sub 20. Sarah Littlewood knocked an amazing 45 seconds off her PB with a little encouragement from the clubs top pacers (me and Dai K) on the final 2K. There was an 18 second PB for Julie Griffiths and PB of the day went to Jayne Powney who knocked 1 minute 42 seconds off her pervious best for her first sub 30 parkrun finish. Well done to Rhian, Llinos and Claire on their first parkruns.

Elsewhere there were huge PBs for Dawn Hopkins and June Parry at Pontypridd parkrun. So close for Katie Wood at Raphael parkrun in Romford coming in 2 seconds short of a PB on her first parkrun tourism. Finally, Bethan Cross ran Barry before going onto do Llantwit 10K.

11 of the blue wave signed up for Llantwit 10K with 6 having done a parkrun before whilst Adam Rowe had done the Llantwit 5K event. A lovely but tough 10K course. However, it was the first race I’ve done were all the kilometre markers were out (too soon) but then they added it all in after the 9K mark which was about 1.3K from this finish which was a bit cruel. Great medal and good entry price.

As for the race itself, Nick Harris was first back in just over 45 minutes whilst new member Simon Harrison was next up. Graham Hillman and I ran the first 4 miles together before he pulled away to finish a few seconds ahead. Lloyd West and first female for the club, Nicola Symmonds was up next, followed by Victoria Hillman, Christie, Adam, Kimberley Thomas and Bethan. It was a PB for Kimberley as it was her first ever 10K race and first event overall outside of parkrun.

Kevin ran the inaugural Narbeth Nobbler Half Marathon. A tough off road half (bit longer than 13.1) with plenty of hills and technical terrain. Results not available at the time of writing but according to Strava data Kevin finished in just over 2 hours.

Sunday 28 – Severn Bridge Half Marathon

28 runners for this one which was run over a vastly different course to the previous years. Elevation profiles and comments suggested organisers had decided to make it much tougher with hills throughout rather than the old profile with was mostly downhill after the big hill in the middle.

Niki Puleio was first back in his first half marathon with the club in a blistering 1:30:35. Our first female finisher was Juliet Amner who finished in 1:58 and was 5th in her age category. First female finisher from last weeks Half Marathon, Kirsty Evans finished just a minute behind for her second sub 2 hour time in 8 days. Rob and Chris Pratt helped pace Nicola Prior to a PB – an amazing effort considering her previous PB was on the much flatter Llanelli course. Dawn Hopkins ran with Kirstie Edwards who got a PB of 2:34 whilst Rhiannon Buckley and Sian LG got their target of sub 3 hours and two shiny new PB’s.

Monday 28 – South Wales Trail Half Marathon

Organised by Run Walk Crawl who’s events include the Vale Ultra and Gower 50 miler, this was always going to be a tough event. A half marathon through Llanwonno Forest just North of Pontypridd with 2000 feet of elevation over varying terrain. Neil Jones finished second and actually beat the previous course record by 5 minutes. Jamie Vanstone finished in 7th place whilst David Sheard continued his year of off road events with another one ticked off the list.

Tuesday 29 – Parc Slip

ANOTHER RECORD ATTENDANCE. 89 Cwm Ogwr Runners registered for the event with 83 actually running it. This was the 4th fixture of the Bridgend League with the biggest combined attendance to date from the 6 clubs with over 220 runners. Neil was 4th overall but beaten by two ‘guests’ so was 2nd for league scoring purposes. The distance was 3.5 miles so you could either say we all got ‘3.5 mile PB’s’ or there weren’t any PB’s due to it not being one of the standard distances. I won’t go through all 83 results so will just say a massive well done to everyone that ran. There is one amazing stat I want to share from that race though, which is that 44 of our 83 runners only signed up to the club this year! That number increases to around 70 for members who’ve signed up in the last 18 months.

Chairman’s Male Runner of the Month – Jamie Vanstone

Runner of the month in his first full month with the club – it’s all downhill from here! Interestingly Jamie commented the other day that Christie ‘never misses an event’ however this coming from someone who this month did 3 parkruns (two of which were PB’s), the Parc Slip race, an off road 10K where he was first club finisher back in 46 minutes, a hilly off road half marathon in which he finished in 7th place, and the small matter of the Gloucester Marathon. The marathon was also his third race of 26.2 miles or over in just 6 weeks and one of those was a 69 mile Ultra. Jamie has also attended both Ogmore and Pandy Park sessions despite having to travel further than most showing great commitment to training.  Tomorrow he plans on running the 33 mile Vale Ultra course… despite not being in training for a marathon – bonkers.

Chairman’s Female Runner of the Month – Juliet Amner

Our first female ‘national medal winner’ with a second placed age category finish after her PB performance at the Welsh 5K Championships. Juliet followed that up by being our first female finisher in the Severn Bridge Half Marathon and getting a sub 2 hour finish for a 5th placed age category finish. Finally in the Parc Slip fixture, she was 1st in her age category for over 55 females.

Coming up in September

Another huge month ahead. Rose Inn Relays next Monday followed by the 5th fixture in the Bridgend League on Wednesday and 80+ members signed up for the Cardiff 10K on the Sunday. The following week will see another huge blue wave descend on Swansea for the 10K whilst the end of the month sees Cwm Ogwr compete in the first of the West Glam Cross Country League fixtures. It’s going to be another amazing month for the Blue Wave.

Saturday 16th – parkruns, Merthyr Mawr Trail Festival and Race to the Stones

Zero parkrun tourists and Porthcawl the only venue – not sure when the last time that happened. It’s not often I write about low numbers but at 23 parkrunners, it’s the lowest in a while even though that’s still more than most clubs on a good week! Gareth Richards joined the sub 20 club with a 19:57 after several close attempts in recent weeks. He becomes the 15th person to run a sub 20 5K for Cwm Ogwr. Pippa Clark also got a PB with a 44:28 which is her 3rd parkrun PB in as many attempts.

The inaugural Merthyr Mawr Trail Festival offered a 7.2 mile ‘Rabbit Run’ and an 18 mile ‘Witches Run’ around Merthyr Mawr estate including pretty much all terrain with grass, mud, gravel, tarmac, sand, farmland, crop fields and a waist deep river crossing. I was first Cwm Ogwr home in the Rabbit Run which included a ‘Riverbank Rollick style’ muddy section from mile 1 to 2.5 – the 18 milers had to do it twice! The 7.2 miler turned out to be closer to 8 but a great run with a bit of everything included. Peter Harrop, Caerwyn and Dai Power all also completed the Rabbit Run.

In the 18 miler, Neil Jones finished in a fantastic 2nd place overall. He only lost out to Andrew Tuckey who is an international runner who specialises in long distance and off road events of anything up to 100K! Neil encouraged his mate Tim Phillips to join the club and he was our next finisher followed by Chris Pratt, David Sheard, Brian Cotton, Christie Coleman and Kris Denholm who ran most of the race with no shoes on! Chris, Christie and Kris clocked up over 20 miles for the day as they also ran parkrun.

The Race to the Stones is a 100K Ultra that can be done over 1 day as a ‘non-stop’ event or split into two 50K days. Maria Lalic was back for her second attempt having had to drop out on doctors orders at 50K last year whilst Nicola Symmonds was making her Ultra distance debut, also attempting the two day option. Unfortunately the dreaded blisters struck again for Maria and again she was made to call it a day after the first 50K. Nicola and Maria actually finished within just a few minutes of each other on day one. Nicola went on the complete day 2 in a substantially faster time than day one and finished the total 100K in a little over 17 hours. Amazing achievement.

Sunday 17th – Pontypridd Loop 10K(ish)

Interestingly despite this one being a popular choice when asking for votes on club championship races, there were only 3 of us who did it making it by far the smallest club championship event this year. This was a rare local event I hadn’t done before and I signed up last minute along with Jenna Horn. Fiona Drysdale was doing the for 3rd year in a row. Apart from knowing the race was multi terrain and somewhere around 6 miles / 10K, I was entering the unknown, unable to find any elevation profiles. So it came as a bit of a surprise when Fiona told me that the first 4 miles are all uphill! This was confirmed in the race briefing and then in the race itself. Admittedly it was a steady incline and had the odd short flat recovery on the way, but still pretty tough going – especially after two events the previous day for me. I was looking forward to the descent but when it finally came it turned out to be quite technical and not quite the fast couple of miles I was hoping for. A great race – only £6 if signing up in advance or £8 on the day. You don’t really expect anything for that entry fee but there was still a Ponty Roadents buff, water and a selection of chocolate / sweets to dig into. I finished the race in 53 minutes whilst Fiona was just over the hour mark with Jenna back in 1:24.

Wednesday 20th – Kenfig 5K

New record attendance with 74 of the Blue Wave running one of the toughest 5K’s around. Hills are friends, sand is not! Particularly 2 miles of it. Neil finished 2nd overall for the second time in 5 days with Niki Puleio our next runner in. This fixture was the third in the Bridgend League and team scoring is based on the top 15 runners positions of each team being added together, then a point deducted for each additional runner over 15. The aim is to get the lowest score so everyone makes a different whether first or last runner in. So with that in mind we were delighted to find when the final results were published that we finished 1st in the team scoring!! A massive well done to all involved and particularly to a few Zero to Hero runners who were running it as their first official event. A great event organised by Cornelly Striders and dare I say it, I think they may actually have had even more cakes than we did in our events.

Saturday 23rd – parkruns

40 runners at 7 different parkruns in 3 different countries. 26 at Porthcawl where Dave Evans equalled his seasons best on his 200th parkrun with a 19:58. Dave becomes the first Cwm Ogwr member to reach that milestone of 200 parkruns. Chris Pratt and I ran at Penrhyn parkrun, Chris Stanlake was at Penrose, and most impressively Denise Bradley ran Clement Waterfront parkrun in Florida whilst out there on holiday. She’s actually our second runner there after Kelly ran her 50th parkrun there last year.

Elsewhere there were 5 runners at Swansea parkrun including Aled and Brian who were going on from there do recce the first third of the Gower 50 course. There were also 4 runners at the Gnoll parkrun including parkrun tourists Shawn Cullen and Julie Ransom.

Sunday 24th – Snowdonia Trail Half Marathon

After seeing this advertised last year, this was high on the must do race list for me in 2016. A half marathon that climbs to the top of Snowdon with 4000 feet of elevation. To put that into context, Snowdon Marathon is 2800 feet and doing the Beast run twice would only be 2500 feet. Myself and Chris started way to far back in the starting pen and as a consequence got held up a lot in the first few miles on the narrow paths up Snowdon. Chris headed off into the distance after a mile and I didn’t see him again until the end when I discovered he’d fallen on a steep descent after 3 miles and had hurt his ankle in the process but fortunately was able to continue. Mile 5-6 was incredibly steep rising 1200 feet in a mile. I reached the top of Snowdon in around 1:40 (after 6.5 miles)… my half marathon PB is 1:34 so it took me longer just to reach half ways.

The descent was down the Llanberis path which despite being one of the more well maintained paths on Snowdon, you soon discover how uneven it is when trying to run down it. I actually loved it and passed around 20 people on the descent and on review after the race, closed the gap considerably to Chris who had got to the summit a good 10 minute ahead. Reaching the bottom we were told to turn right and through a gate onto a flat section through some trees. After the fast descent I was determined to keep the pace up so after going through the gate I sprinted off knowing the toughest bit was over… however, after less than 50 meters my foot kicked what I think was a tree root sticking out of the ground and I fell flat on my face. The combination of trying to keep the pace up and force of the fall meant I literally bounced forward and it was only after the race I discovered my knee was dropping with blood and two 4 inch cuts down my right calf which must have scraped along some branches / stones as I continued forward on the ground. I got up quickly from the fall and carried on deciding that if the damage was that bad I’d soon know about it. A bit painful but no reason to stop. 3 miles to go.

As if climbing the highest mountain in Wales isn’t enough, the route then includes climbing a Slate Quarry from mile 11-12 with a zig-zag path up and lots of steps! Just to add to the torture, mile 10.5-13 skirts the edges of the playing fields where the start / finish is so you can hear the commentator and supporters at the finish but still have up to 2.5 miles to go.. including another huge climb of 600 feet (equivalent of the Beast). The finish was a welcomed sight and after 250+ events it’s not often I throw my arms in the air in celebration but completing that one felt like an achievement worth celebrating. The bloodied legs were soon pointed out when I seen Chris who had come in just 2 minutes ahead and was still in the finish funnel where his partner Jo and my wife Amanda and my 2 year old twin boys were waiting to cheer us in. A visit to the first aid tent for the first time in my running career was required. It was a popular venue with so many taking a tumble at some point in wet and therefore slipping conditions on tough terrain. The next guy in after me had actually cut both knees, elbows and had blood running down his face from hitting his head. Incredibly he seemed very calm about it all like it’s the sort of thing that happens all the time. In fact, he only came in because his wife who was a first aider herself insisted. A race not for the faint hearted. Loved it and hated it in equal measurers. A personal worst half marathon time of 2:52 but it was never about the time. A great experience. Oh, and I haven’t mentioned, we did the easy option.. there’s a marathon as well!

Saturday 30th – parkruns

42 of the Blue Wave across 6 different parkruns in 3 different countries! 36 of which were at Porthcawl were Neil Jones was first finishers overall with a time of 17:29 – just 8 seconds outside his PB and comfortably in front of the second placed runner. New member Jamie Vanstone who has run multiple marathons and an ultra finally did his first parkrun with a cracking first time of 20:38. Several members ran down to parkrun as part of training for half and full or ultra marathons. Pippa Clark made it 4 PB’s in 4 attempts with a 44:24 with Bev Sheard in support.

Fiona Drysdale ran the Inverness parkrun where her son Jamie ran an incredible 18:45. Sarah Littlewood ran at Wolverhampton and clocked a big PB with 26:00. Dai Power and Julie Ransom ran at Bryn Bach and Saul Harris ran at Southampton. Down at the Gnoll, Richard Lowcock James ran the three lap off road course and fell on the final lap. He finished despite later needing stitches in his knee. There’s certainly a lot of competition for ‘best fall’ award this year!

Sunday 31st – Tenby 10K and Magor Marsh 10K

Emma Loyns was first finisher at Tenby with an excellent time of 57 minutes considering the injuries over the past few months. Dawn Hopkins also came in under the hour mark whilst Ann Davies finished in 1:03 and Kirstie Edwards clocked 1:08.

At Magor 10K, Niki Puleio ran an incredible 40:02 despite having run down to parkrun the day before and after a few weeks off regular running whilst out in France supporting Wales in the Euro’s. Kirsty Evans ran a PB of 52:06 whilst Panda teammate (you’ll have to ask them), Bethan Cross also got a PB with 1:07:25.

Chairman’s Male Runner of the Month – Gareth Richards

Two parkrun PB’s including finally breaking the 20 minute barrier after several close calls. Gareth was also first Cwm Ogwr runner back in the Drovers 10K and put in brilliant performances in Cosmeston Relays and Kenfig 5K.

Chairman’s Female Runner of the Month – Pippa Clark

Three parkrun PB’s during July and a great effort at both the Cosmeston Relays and Kenfig Sands 5K. Amazing progress.