Week Ending - 2021/07/18
MATT TAKES FIRST PLACE IN EPIC MAVERICK TRAIL WIN
&
LIZ IS THE BIZ AS SHE MAKES IT TO 100
In-form Badgers star Matt Scarsbrook has been producing some superb performances of late and this weekend saw him take a magnificent first place in the 22K Maverick Terrex Trail event in Buckinghamshire. Attracting runners from across the country, the event offered athletes a choice of three different distances set over some challenging yet scenic countryside on the hottest weekend of the year. Some 190 runners tackled the long discipline, four of whom were Badgers and as is often the case these days, staggered starts were offered to help with physical distancing. Baddesley man Scarsbrook set off at a rare old rattle, yet such is his fitness, he was able to maintain a strong pace right throughout the race, eventually crossing the line in 1:43:24. Although he knew he had put in a quality run, at this stage, he was unaware that he had won. With other runners finishing who had differing start times, there was a little wait before Scarsbrook was declared the winner, and by the slender margin of just two seconds on chip time too. Nonetheless, it was a great and well-deserved win and testament to the hard yards he puts in each week as part of his training. To add icing to the cake, team-mate Adi Payne took a superb third place overall in 1:47:41, over four minutes back but a similar margin ahead of his nearest challenger in fourth. Rising star Ryan Preece ran a strong race in the heat to dip under 2 hours, clocking 1:58:46 to end up in a respectable 18th overall. Cameron Barnes rounded up the Badger quartet with a gutsy 2:18:28 in 68th spot.
With a number of club runners saving themselves for 24-hour endurance events next weekend, only Ian Orton was otherwise pressed into race action, the dad of one battling some serious heat in the Chester 10K as he got back in a sweaty 52:43.
Determined Badgers distance runner Liz Peel at last achieved her long held goal of reaching 100 career marathons on what was the hottest weekend of the year. With temperatures approaching 30 degrees, it would have been far the easier option to have postponed the celebration of her milestone to a cooler day but anyone who knows the Loughborough University professor will appreciate just how strong willed she is. In the Cone Of Doom marathon in Northampton, she had a little help in the form of company for some of the way from club mates Serena Baker and Carl Savage and made it to the finish line in what must surely rank as one of the toughest marathons for her, certainly weather wise. And there are 99 others to choose from, having travelled to far flung destinations such as Malta, Iceland and the Netherlands, the Atherstone based mum of one also boasts an impressive PB of 3:46:30 set in her wife’s hometown of Edinburgh in 2013. There have been less glamourous settings along the way too, running 105 and a half laps of a running track for example but to put the distance covered in totality into perspective, it is the equivalent of running from Atherstone to Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. And from event one to one hundred it has taken a total of eight years and three months altogether.
It has not all been plain sailing for Peel, as injuries and a global pandemic have intervened forcing her to re-adapt and re-plan. However, her achievement owes much to her strength of character in tackling the challenges head on and finding solutions. Upon reaching 100, she announced her second retirement from marathon running, the first coming back in 2014, with the goal to focus more on the less time-consuming half marathon distance. One notable marathon that does not yet appear on her extensive resume is the iconic London marathon, but fortune was smiling down on her last month as she was finally accepted for a place care of the charity Dyslexia Research Trust which she says will be her 101st and final go at the distance. Her achievement means she is now the only current Badgers member to have run 100 marathons and only the fifth lady to have earned the 100 Marathon Club vest in 2021.