Week Ending - 2023/09/17

BADGERS BUSY BEATING OFF THE OPPOSITION AT EQUINOX24

Belvoir Castle was the venue for the 24-hour Equinox event at the weekend, where runners team up to run 10K laps in relay across a 24-hour period from midday to midday. Badgers sent a mixed team of seven to race the large team category while Chris Tweed was a lone wolf in his first-ever solo attempt in a big ultra. With plenty of support on hand the septet of David “DC” Craig, Megan Griffiths, Adrian Payne, Mark Cox and club record holders Mark Coggan, Nicki Bowman and Danny Warren, all showed their endurance skills by taking first place in their category. The team clocked up a mammoth 310K in the race and were worthy winners over the weekend. 

Chris Tweed managed a gigantic total of 140K (around 87 miles) as he took 23rd place out of 252 solo male runners in his debut ultra marathon. The Dordon dad of three became a fully-fledged member of the sub-3 marathon club earlier in the year and once again dared to believe by stepping well out of his comfort zone. His sterling efforts further cemented his claim to be the hardest man in the Dordon (and now also Polesworth) area and unsurprisingly topped out the club’s weekly step challenge by a considerable margin, despite having rested most of the week in readiness for his epic encounter. Judy and Adrian Parkes each completed laps in 61 and 53 minutes respectively. 

Suzy Farrell and Colin Lees were both hard at it in Worcester for the half marathon there on Sunday. Lees was first to finish (in 1:42:25) but Farrell’s time of 1:42:54 represented a new personal best for her over the distance, a fitting finish to what has been an exceptional season for the veteran ace of pace. In Portugal, Justin Haywood tackled the Faro 10K in searing heat but battled on heroically to finish first Badger back in a very respectable time.  Liz Peel ran her 46th half marathon at the Birmingham Festival of Running in Sutton Park, completing the four-lap course in 2:09:49, her quickest time for a good while.  

At the Tamworth 5 race on Sunday, three Badgers were in action, albeit one of them representing a massively dominant Tamworth side that boasted eight out of the top thirteen finishers. Chris Horton, (a second claim Tamworth AC athlete) clocked 29:03, to finish 11th male, while Ashley Taylor made the top thirty with a spirited run of 32:31, not quite a PB but as good as given the relative difficulty of the course. London-bound Wayne Repton ran 37:52 to round things up. 

Jamie Lawrence travelled to Dorset for the Weymouth Ironman only to discover that rough seas had forced the cancellation of the opening swim element. He still had to negotiate a 56-mile bike ride and a half marathon so the (now second) hardest man in Polesworth got stuck straight in a cranked out a quality sub-three-hour time on two wheels before following it up with a 2:15 run to give him a super time of 5:21 for the truncated yet still arduous event. 

Parkrun saw a number of solid operators exposing their running skills at venues far and wide. Dave Hill took 1st place at Rosliston in 17:56 while Ashley Taylor (9th) and Paul Cooper both bagged course bests. Ryan Preece ran 18:20 to win at Belvoir Castle parkrun with Mark Cox taking third and Megan Griffiths 10th lady ahead of their Equinox adventure. Sam Starkey ran 19:39 to take 5th at Hanley while Chris Horton, Mark Repton and Jill Miller all earned top ten places at Kingsbury Water Park.