Week Ending - 2022/10/30

PARKRUN DOUBLE SUCCESS FOR PREECE & GRIFFITHS

With a grand total of 399 parkruns taking place at Kingsbury Water Park since the event began and no end of Badgers tackling the oft-re-routed 5K course, rising stars Ryan Preece and Megan Griffiths became only the sixth duo ever to take first places from the club in the same event. In terrible boggy and wet underfoot conditions, diminutive Preece made light work of the treacherous terrain, bravely bobbing and weaving through the woods to dominate the race in a time of 17:56, well over a minute clear of his closest rival. The Atherstone speedster is in decent form right now and the fact that he was still over a minute off his PB tells you everything you need to know about how tough it was to generate serious speed on such slippy ground. The most improved female of 2022 Griffiths backed up her first place from the prior week with a PB performance of 23:46, a quite remarkable effort from her, with undoubtedly much more to come time wise were she to test herself on one of the area’s quicker courses such as Walsall or Long Eaton for example.

The Badger juggernaut kept on delivering however despite this double-headed domination. With his disproportionately small cranium, former men’s captain Adi Payne offers the perfect antithesis to pacesetter Preece and it was he who sped back in third spot overall with his fleet-footed time of 19:18. He was soon followed home by the legendary Glyn Broadhurst who bagged the highest age grading of the morning in 19:28 and fellow veteran Dave Jackson took sixth and made it a Badgers 1-2-3 in the wava stakes with a brave 19:41, although some might say a little too brave, particularly given his potentially career-threatening tumble the week previously that would have finished off many a lesser athlete. Another multi-time parkrun winner Dave Hill trotted home next in 20:09 with Cameron Barnes a place and five seconds back in 9^th. Martin Graham weighed in with a quality run in 21:57, 15^th place for the transplant games medal hero. Further back in the pack was Tim Gould, already a veteran of well over 100 volunteer stints, the popular Kingsbury-based runner notched up his 250th parkrun at the weekend in a running capacity, some real commitment and dedication to the cause. Only David Craig has appeared in more runs than he.

Away from home territory, Sam Starkey produced an excellent 3^rd place run of 21:22 at the Queen Elizabeth parkrun in Hampshire and one of the fastest Badgers of all time Aaron Chetwynd took second at the Towcester-based Watermeadows run in 18:31. The hard-working Jo Hardy took 7^th in the Poolsbrook parkrun in 26:66.

In other events, Chris Horton failed to live up to the heights he set in 2021 where he took 7^th in a torrential rain-affected Leicester Half in a vet’s club record time of 77:27. Although conditions were drier this weekend, the 47-year-old struggled in the second half of the race as a result of a combination of a string headwind and inadequate fitness. Notwithstanding, he got back in a creditable 80:44, a top 30 finish and his fourth fastest half marathon ever, three of which have come in the last 12 months. As the only club representative, he was unsurprisingly the first Badger back too.

Dave Purvis clocked 46:06 for the challenging 5-mile Skeleton Run, which involved ascending Beacon Hill twice on boggy uncompromising terrain. This was good enough to earn him 16^th place in the field. Sean White was another in action as he ran a sparkling 50:13 in the Redditch 10K race on Sunday.

For those interested in knowing who the prior parkrun winning pairs are, club statistician Willy Windmill can reveal that they are Matt Tonks/Monika Lampart in 2014, Chris Horton/Esther Holyoak, Matt Tonks/Liz Peel, Chris Baxter/Esther Holyoak and Matt Scarsbrook/Laura Starkey with the first of these instances being the quickest on aggregate with a combined time of 37:55, impressive stuff I’m sure you’ll agree.