Week Ending - 2024/02/04

BRILLIANT BETH TAKES FIRST PLACE

Beth Woodward is deep into her training for the 2024 London Marathon and on Saturday, she incorporated a parkrun into her schedule hoping to go all the way at Tamworth after previously finishing in second, third and fourth place at the popular new event in South Staffordshire. Some 133 women toed the line for the fourteenth running of the race but none were able to live with the power and pace possessed by the in-form Woodward, who stormed to her debut win in a personal best time of 22:56. Not only was this her first 5K under 23 minutes but it gave the club their first female winner at Tamworth after having three men achieve the feat last year. 

Mark Repton was the quickest Badger male on the morning dipping inside 20 minutes by just four seconds to take ninth overall, beating off teammate Dave Jackson who helped himself to a course-best time of 19:57. The pint-sized Jackson is no stranger to the top ten in these affairs and here he dedicated his achievement to the memory of Carl Weathers, the Rocky star who sadly passed away over the weekend. 

Serial winner Dave Hill’s victorious streak came to a halt at Sixfields parkrun in Northampton but he can consider himself particularly unfortunate to run an absolutely sparkling time of 16:16 over 5K and still not emerge the quickest of the day! Glyn Broadhurst bagged a fine 8th place in 19:55 while the pacy Megan Griffiths finished fifth female in a fast 23:23.

Maggi Savin-Baden was busy putting Badgers on the map for the first time in New Zealand, the published academic who is more than a dab hand in the kitchen let me tell you, was first Badger back at a people-packed antipodean Hagley parkrun. Closer to home, at Kingsbury Water Park no less, Chris Tweed finished 10th male and Jill Miller 5th lady while Lee Millership celebrated his 250th parkrun making him one of only nine current Badgers to reach the landmark milestone. Wayne Repton became the envy of anoraks everywhere as he completed his parkrun stopwatch bingo card, in Tamworth!

The Charnwood Hills fell race attracted a handful of Badgers including Adrian Payne who finished 26th in 1:47:07 ahead of some big hitters in the wider Leicestershire region. Stefan Martin and Emma Masser were also in action although full final results were not available for this race at the time of writing.