FOUR FAST FIRSTS FOR BADGERS HISTORY

Badgers made club history at the weekend as four of their runners scooped first places at different park runs across the country. There have been several instances of multiple winners at parkrun before but never as many as four in one morning. Dave Hill kicked things off at nearby Kingsbury Water Park. The Polesworth speedster is eyeing up the club record this summer, with his personal best time just four seconds away from Chris Baxter’s top standard. The course at Kingsbury doesn’t lend itself to being a PB course these days, but a more scenic parkrun you will struggle to find, especially on a good day. Hill was a last-minute entry into the field as a planned journey to Chasewater had to be shelved as his lift-share Dave Jackson was held up doing his hair and the duo were pushed for time. Hill led from the off and was a comfortable winner in 17:02.

Over at Chasewater, Cameron Barnes could have been forgiven into thinking he had been stood up, but the rising star of Badgers instead took the opportunity to dominate the event in the absence of his two more experienced colleagues. He bagged his second success of the season with a pacy 19:07 time to give Badgers another piece of the first place action. Babbs Mill often sees a handful of Badgers representatives and here it was Kingsbury regular Mark Repton who took control of proceedings with an epic display of pace and power. The Dosthill Dad stormed back in 18:35 to make it a hat-trick of wins for his side.

The icing on the celebratory cake came over at the Nant Y Pandy parkrun in Anglesey where poster boy Adrian Payne added Wales to his list of countries where he has experienced parkrun success, England and the USA being the other two. He made it an unprecedented quadruple with his super time of 20:15 on a tricky course ahead of a race the following day. With his muscular quadriceps, tousled hair and over-active jaw, the Baddesley bachelor duly added another parkrun first to both his running and no doubt dating CV also.

Rachael Shelton was the next highest finisher with a gutsy third place at Beacon parkrun in 23:01, a quality outing. Sam Starkey was 7^th male in 19:39, another good effort. David Craig made the top ten with his 7^th place run behind Payne in Wales (23:44) with Pip Weston also turning out. Janet Crumpton took 10^th place at Chasewater in 28:26 with John and Anne Devenney, Jo Hardy, Merv Jones and Karen Draper all there to cheer her on from behind.

Elsewhere, Matt Heap ran at Sutton Park, Karen Thompson and Stephanie Attenborough featured at Rosliston and Ian Orton flew the flag at Perry Hall. Dolgellau in Wales saw Yvonne Faulkner, Dave Grant and Zoe Yeatman in action with Anne-Marie Matthews going solo in Bedworth. Holly and Andy Smith ran Woodgate Valley. Paul Grubb and Mark Reynolds went well at Conkers and Vikki Smith and Ivana Babicova tore it up at Oaklands. Glyn Broadhurst and Nicki Bowman both ran at Delamere parkrun with Adam McElhone celebrating his Badger of the Week award with another good performance at Babbs Mill ahead of Neil Thorne and Steve Perry.

The rest were at Kingsbury where the biggest turnout of all Badgers continued. Dave Jackson sped round steadily in a smidgen over 20 minutes with Tim Gould hot on his heel-like heels. Pete Coogan, Matt Green, Nick Miles, Lil Souter, Sharon Jackson, Jill Miller, Suzy Farrell and Paul Wallace all followed soon afterwards and that’s before we’ve even mentioned the likes of Sean White and Teresa Satchell.

Away from parkrun, there were a few other races to be run a week ahead of the second and long-awaited instalment of the Leicestershire Road Running League campaign, the West End 8 at Syston. In Anglesey, Adi Payne powered home in 4^th place in the Round Anglesey 10K, his time a respectable 42:21 on a challenging multi-terrain course that incorporated sandy beaches as well as rare trails. Veteran ace David Craig made the top 30 with a super effort of 55:40 while in the half marathon discipline Dave Jenkinson took 29^th place with a terrific run of 1:49:15 and Cheryl Dewis toughed it out to finish in 1:57:45, yet more sterling work from the stoic Stockingford barber.

Stephanie Attenborough helped herself to the fastest half marathon of her career so far as she ran the Worcester Half in 2:08:39 and last but by no means least, Matt Scarsbrook, now competing for Birchfield Harriers ran an unbelievably fast 32:02 10K to make the top 40 in the televised Great Manchester 10K in a true star-studded field of many of the top names in GB distance running and beyond.