Week Ending - 2023/10/08

MARK’S MAJOR MARATHON MAGIC

Badgers ace Mark Repton ticked off his penultimate world major marathon at the weekend with a fantastic performance in Chicago. The race notably saw the men’s world record tumble, but Kelvin Kiptum was not the only runner putting in a quality shift. The Dosthill-based Dad has already run at London, New York, Berlin and Boston and hopes to complete the set of six with a trip to Tokyo in the near future. However, while competing at all six world majors is unquestionably a thing in itself, Repton cannot be accused of simply turning up to plod around gently and collect his medal and t-shirt, and his effort in the Windy City bears testament to exactly that. Setting off at a forthright tempo, the 40-year-old, who has a personal best time of 2:57:05, was on track to better that by the halfway stage, clocking an impressive 86:53. However, as the temperatures began to rise after starting the race at 7:30 am, plus the expected fatigue setting in after a brisk beginning, Repton had to endure a couple of tough kilometres on the way to the finish, digging deep to get over the line in a magnificent 2:59:26, a tremendous achievement from the former men’s vice-captain. 

Also running overseas was Justin Haywood, who turned in a vintage display at the selfie-stick-laden Lisbon 8K. Kicking off on the iconic Vasco de Gama bridge, the race is one of the most popular in the country and Haywood showed his class by putting in a quality performance, once again emerging first Badger back. Closer to home, mum and daughter duo Maggi and Anna Savin-Baden tackled a warm Royal Parks half marathon in London getting around in a time of 2:51:04. They were joined by Sara Hawkins who finished in 3:13:17, a phenomenal achievement from someone who just five years ago was lying in a hospital bed battling cancer in her mid-thirties. To have beaten the big C and continued to recover well enough to take on and complete long-distance events such as this is a massive credit to both her strength of mind and positivity, a superb achievement. 

Up in Doncaster, Adrian and Judy Parkes ran 24:23 and 28:38 respectively at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park 5K, taking time out to run after another busy week masterminding their table-topping Fantasy Premier League side.

There were several Badgers in 5K action on Saturday with parkrun kick-starting people’s weekends up and down the country. At the fledgling Sence Valley parkrun, Badgers were all over the top of the leaderboard with Ryan Preece taking top spot in 17:04 and with it establishing a new course record. Dave Hill took third place in 17:52 with Danny Warren 5th, tempo-ing round in 18:51. Suzy Farrell was second lady in 23:44 with Rachael Browne and Meg Griffiths both making the top ten. Chris Tweed established a new v40 course record with his rip-snorting time of 20:05, the Dordon hard-man even beating off a rejuvenated Dave Jackson, who produced an epic display to launch himself into the fastest 25 runners of all time at this event. His time of 21:09 came courtesy of a brave start that included an opening kilometre of 3:44, although he was unable to keep it up for the duration, with subsequent splits of 4:16, 4:19, 4:06 and 4:19, a solid performance from the most solid of solid operators no less. The event also marked the return to action of the pacy Laura Starkey who has been out injured for most of the year. The ladies’ team will undoubtedly benefit from having her back in the side in 2024. Alice Blecher took 9th female at Market Bosworth with a good time of 27:17 and Stephanie White managed 5th on the beach at Hafan Pwllheli parkrun in 31:41. 

This week sees the commencement of the 2023/4 Derby Runner Cross Country League, a six-race series in which the Badgers men’s team will be looking to re-capture the title they held for several seasons before relinquishing it to Poplar RC last year. The teams will be led by new captains and the opening race will be at Ravenstone, where a hard and dry course foxed many a competitor last term.