A weekend of Firsts
- brian17harris
- 23 hours ago
- 6 min read
1st time local appearance of Parkrun Royalty
Following a club Whatsapp tip-off from Jos Randall at the Cheltenham festival on Friday evening, some of the club’s keenest and prolific parkrunners turned up at the Cirencester event hoping to meet a Parkrun VIP.
Rachel McAdam reports -
“After reading Jos’ slightly cryptic message in our Thursday runners WhatsApp group. I jogged to Cirencester parkrun, (phone in pocket, don’t normally take it), in the hope of getting a photo with the founder of parkrun, Paul Sinton-Hewitt CBE. And I wasn’t disappointed, he was there.
I introduced myself and told him how he had completely transformed my and my family’s lives all in different ways. I was a non-runner before I started parkrunning back in 2011. If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t have joined CAC, and I probably wouldn’t have two sons who are both now very committed to running.
Alan, Brendan and I had a lovely conversation with him, what a very nice unassuming man. A man responsible for starting an event that now over 11 million people are registered for worldwide. We had quite a long conversation. I said I didn’t want to monopolise him. He said that wasn’t a problem. He was quite happy to hide. And according to Jos who went to his talk at Cheltenham Literature Festival last night, parkrun are bringing the stats back.”
Pam Wheeler also had a pleasant conversation with Mrs PSH without Pam knowing who she was!
{Ed. – great news from PSH about restoring the stats if true – I could throw my protest "bring back the stats" t-shirt away}
On the field, there were no PB’s or milestones, but Rachel McAdam had the rare honour of being the fastest club member on an age-graded basis (c. 72%). Rachel and Alan are now on 581 Parkruns, just 11 behind PSH himself.
Rob Forbes was further back in the field than usual, but he was accompanying his daughter Heidi, with former juniors Otis and Heath finishing ahead.
A little further afield in Swindon, Corinne Clark was delighted just to be running with her buddy and club legend Wendy Nicholls.
Cirencester: 17 Casey Vatcher 21.23, 38 Glenn Tyler 22.48, 75 Rob Forbes 25.11,93 Alan McAdam 26.30, 98 Gary Wood 26.40, 120 Rachel McAdam 27.27,122 Brendan McCarthy 27.35, 165 Susanna Austin 28.57, 178 Gordon Jones 29.31,228 Amanda Naylor 33.06, 300 finished.
Tetbury: 28 David Moss 24.09, 34 Stephen Hale 24.47, 172 finished.
Swindon, Lydiard Park: 59 Wendy Nicholls 23.25, 77 Corinne Clark 24.13, 446 finished.
Three Brooks, Bradley Stoke, Bristol: 251 Ruth Fulford 34.48, 297 finished.
Farm Pond, Boston, USA: 6 Tom Morgan 25.35, 17 finished
1st 4-miler and 4 x 1st age-groupers
Sunday saw the inaugural running of the “Sharpness 4”, organised by Dursley RC, timing by Lush. It replaced the Haresfield 5k that had originally been in the Glos AAA road series for the summer, but didn’t go ahead.
The race HQ, start and finish (and parking) were all based at the Sharpness sports and social club, not far from Berkeley (venue for Fission 20 amongst others). The clubhouse was very handy and would have been even more so if the weather had been rough (as it turned out, almost perfect running conditions – no wind or sun and around 10C). The course was neither flat nor hilly in a Cranham Boundary way, so “undulating” was fair. Almost traffic free, and 99% on road, with enough friendly marshals not to get lost.
The route thoughtfully started with an out and back section in order to spread the runners out before they had to cross a bridge (which apparently cost the organisers £3 per person for permission!!) with some very chunky and narrow concrete bollards to avoid. After that there was one loop of just under 3 miles.
Hopefully the event will stay on the AAA roster of road series, as it was well organised and the novel distance was more challenging than the usual 5k.
The club had a great set of results – four members winning their age groups. Whilst the official tables have not yet been published, the standings going into the last race appear to be
Rich Allen – 1st MV40 – and cannot now be beaten – CONGRATULATIONS RICH
Two of our other medallists must wait for the last race (November Guy Fawkes 5mi) to see what colour medal they win for the season.
·Karen Higuera is now equal 2nd FV60 but with a race hand, who finished just 6 sec ahead of
·Kate Kilby who is now in 2nd FV65, but also with a race in hand.
Brian Harris, still working his way back to full fitness after 5 months off {Ed. did I mentiom that before?} nevertheless picked up 1st MV60 in the absence of the current age-group leader. He moved up to 1st MV60 position at the 2-mile mark, but lacking in speed work felt like he was fading badly by 3 miles, and fully expected to be overtaken. He just about managed to pick it up for the last downhill half-mile to finish 12s ahead of the 2nd MV60, and 15s inside his target time of 28minutes (and also in line with his Strava predicted 10k pace). He could finish in 3rd place MV60 for the season, but with only 4 runs rather than the minimum 5 would not be eligible for the bronze medal.}
{Kate Jacobs who is still injured remains equal 1st Open Lady, so gold/silver rests on the last race.}
It was a case of an alliterative short sharpener at Sharpness for Andy Duff, who takes on the York marathon next weekend. His training has been going well, and with that little bit of extra speed in his legs a decent improvement on his Manchester marathon debut earlier this year is definitely on the cards – good luck Andy.
Pam Wheeler’s last-minute decision to enter, perhaps encouraged by two of her neighbours having already entered, paid off. Despite the beginnings of a cold, Pam had a good run and really enjoyed catching up with runners from around the county.
{Ed. - the social side of the AAA series and the very friendly competitiveness (at least between the vet ladies) should have had more of a mention in these reports. If you haven’t already, do consider taking part in some of these races next season – if nothing else you get to compare tips on how to manage all sorts of injuries that older runners bump up against ;-) }
1 Alister Liscott (Stroud & District AC) 21.26
6 Rich Allen (Cirencester AC) 22.40 – 1st V40
23 Andy Duff 25.50
37 Brian Harris 27.48 – 1st V60
60 Karen Higuera 30.57 – 1st FV60
61 Kate Kilby 31.03 – 1st FV65
97 Pam Wheeler 38.39
122 finished
1st County Cross Country – Woodchester Park, nr Stroud
As usual, there were various races for different ages and over different distances and the published results (not yet available) are always difficult to navigate. Here’s what we know so far :-
In the Senior men’s race, Bill Leggate finished 1st for the club, with nothing in the tank after gritting it out to stay around 20 seconds of James Thomas. He reports the course was tricky, uneven underfoot and surprisingly warm in the sun.
As can be seen in the photo below (photo credit to Dorian Matts) Aaron Willis was really going well, ahead of Bill and James, until unfortunately he fell on a tight downhill corner and had to retire (DNF) with an injured knee. Hopefully nothing worse than a bad bruise - get well soon Aaron.
In the U17/Ladies/Old men race, unfortunately we had no senior ladies, but U17 Ben Clarke finished in 7th and Dorian Matts (MV65 and junior/teen supremo - pictured below "smiling" for the camera) gamely stepped up by a huge margin from his normal sprinting to take on the rather hilly course.
There were also races for U11, U13 and U15 involving a good number of club juniors/teens.
We will either cover how the junior/teens did in next weeks newsletter (which will be published on Monday/Tuesday not Sunday due to the editor's family wedding on the Sunday), OR a separate new item will go out in the week.
Manchester Half marathon
Three club members ran the Manchester Half on Sunday.
Husband and wife pairing Claire and Scott Mould ran together as usual, just outside the 2 hour mark.
It’s also Jos Randall’s favourite - “So flat and loads of support for the 28,000 of us!”
11612 Claire Mould (Cirencester AC) 2.01.30
11616 Scott Mould 2.01.30
14475 Jos Randall 2.10.30
22343 finished
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