Week Ending - 2023/01/22

GARLAND MOTORING AT MALLORY PARK

Recent signing Tom Garland recorded an impressive new 5K personal best at the weekend with a quality 16:58 at Mallory Park in the ATW Mallory Series. A select but nonetheless very high-quality field assembled on Sunday morning for three distances, 5K, 10K and half marathon and it was the Badgers man who took 18 seconds off his time achieved in The Hague last season with a super run. The Mallory course is reputedly quick but cold temperatures made things less than ideal. That said, Garland, who hails from Lincolnshire, knuckled down from the off and ended up finishing in a superb 8^th place overall. To put his achievement here in perspective, in running a sub 17 minute 5K (outside of parkrun), the 23-year-old became only the fifth runner in Badgers colours to have managed the feat after Danny Warren, Aaron Chetwynd, Chris Baxter and Chris Horton, and this in his very first season with the club too. A bright future certainly seems on the cards after these kind of performances.

Over in the Wolverhampton 5-mile race, Badgers legend Matt Scarsbrook, now running first claim for Birchfield Harriers clocked an eye-watering 25:41 to take second place and with it a share of the prize money. The Baddesley man has been in superb form and can consider himself unfortunate not to have won the race, given the magnitude of his display. Many a race in local athletics has been won with less of a time so huge credit must go to Scarsbrook and indeed the race winner, Tipton Harrier Luke Vine.

There were some solid operators strutting their stuff at those parkruns that managed to go ahead in the icy conditions of the weekend. The fastest Badger of the morning was Dave Jackson who sped to a time of 19:12 at a tricky Kingsbury Water Park. The semi-legendary self-proclaimed “Jackal of Jean” not only lapped everybody on the couch, but a few parkrunners too such was his speed over the two-lap course. Somehow, Megan Griffiths ran a personal best of 23:11, good enough for 11^th place on the day. A relative veteran of over 100 parkruns now, it’s fascinating to think of how quick she might be on a fast course in good weather, rather than a cold and slippy Kingsbury.

Rachael Shelton made yet another top-ten finish in her stellar parkrun career, this time taking ninth at Woodgate Valley in 25:52. The going was good for key man Sam Starkey who clocked an impressive 19:36 at Warwick Racecourse, an excellent each-way bet should the payout go down to 6^th place. Last but by no means least was the born-again Eileen McElhone who ran a quality PB of 30:08 at Rushcliffe, that so far elusive sub-30 time is now tantalizingly close and certainly attainable come the spring should she maintain her current fitness levels.