Week Ending - 2023/01/01

BADGERS HAVE A BASH AT THE HUNCOTE HASH

Fifteen Badgers travelled over to Huncote on New Years' Eve as they closed the calendar year in style at an unforgiving 6 mile off-road annual race, the Huncote Hash. Two runners made the top six with the spasmodically fast Ryan “Preecey” Preece running a superb 41:02 to take fifth ahead of the reliably quick Dave Hill who clocked 41:19. New signing William Pickering made his long-awaited Badgers debut, the mountain biking off-road enthusiast finishing in a hugely respectable 43:08 in 13^th spot. This was three places and 26 seconds ahead of former long-term Badgers poster boy Adrian Payne. Veteran ace Eric Fowler was next back in 45:17, a stunning run from the experienced 58-year-old mud maestro while Mark Cox finished shortly afterwards in 25^th place. Cameron Barnes slogged it around in 46:14 through streams and wet fields, a good effort from the 24-year-old.

The first female back was the classy Eleanor Fowler who like Preece, finished fifth overall, a great performance in 48:18 a handful of seconds down on Hinckley AC star Chloe Sparrow, one of former captain Payne’s “one’s to watch in 2023”. Jim Stilgoe carried on from where he left off at Bosworth parkrun immediately before, running 52:21 ahead of fellow V50 ace Stefan Martin. Colin Lees was next home before new recruit Liberty Underhill became the second Badgers lady to finish in an impressive 58:19. Jamie Lawrence and Eamon Thawley rounded up the action, the former suffering his first loss in his off-road mini-series with Adrian Payne, making the score 2-1 in his favour going into 2023.

At the Wheaton Aston 10K, Danny Warren produced his fastest time in years with a quality 35:06 just two days after Christmas. In a stacked field, this earned him 21^st place with Pete Coogan (48:49) and Hannah Coogan (57:19) following him home.

Aside from these events, it was parkrun city with events on Christmas Eve, Christmas morning, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Adrian Parkes managed his 100^th parkrun at Walsall – other highlights included 21 Badgers showing up at Market Bosworth on Christmas Eve for their second event. There were top ten finishes at Kingsbury Water Park for Sam Starkey, Megan Griffiths, Mark Repton and Adrian Payne. Holly Smith took an age-category win at Hamsterley Forest near Newcastle with the underrated and unrelated Andy Smith bagging a top ten spot at Babbs Mill in 23:31.

Mark Repton made back to back top ten finishes at Kingsbury across Near Year with Megan Griffiths going well in 4^th on the eve and Sharon Jackson making 5^th on the day. Chris Horton took 2^nd place on the first of January in a slippy 18:55.