Plenty of club members in action last week across a variety of terrain including local hills, coastal paths, multiple parkruns and the roads of one of the US’s largest cities.
Starting off locally, we had great representation at the Prosper Events Quantock Hills Trail Runs half marathon and 10k, although the latter significantly over-delivered on distance at more like 11.5k. That wasn’t enough to throw Sam Carden off his stride though, who won the 10k event in an amazing time of 58:20, more than six minutes ahead of second place. Also enjoying the ‘bonus’ kilometres and many hills were James Palmer (1:26:56), Helen Prescott (1:27:43), Katie Baker (1:41:51) and Nicky Keeble in 1:47:24, who after a navigational anomaly ended up doing about 14k!
The half marathon course was pretty much bang on distance but that didn’t stop them packing an unreasonable number of hills into the distance. First back for RFRC was Simon Rowland in 2:43:47, then Chris Gunn in 2:50:12, followed by the trio of Dee Finch, Bev Collins and Jane Cooke who crossed the line together in 3:11:35. Bringing up the rear in 4:03:02 and very much in his own inimitable style was Rob Murr, resplendent in kilt and packing a brush in his role as sweeper.
Marathon regular (and that’s an understatement) Georgina Brice moved up to ultra distance to take on the Atlantic Coast 40 mile ultra coastal trail run, completing the very lumpy course in 12:43:20 and taking her tally of marathons and ultras to 115.
In a real change from the hills and coastal trails of the south west, Helen Needs was in the US to run the Chicago marathon, a huge event of over forty thousand runners which takes over the centre of the city and is one of the six world marathon majors. Helen raced around the course in 4:28:21, completing her fourth marathon major (Berlin, London, New York and now Chicago) with Boston and Tokyo remaining to complete the set.
We had runners at 10 different parkruns last weekend including Bideford, Burnham, Hastings, Itchen Valley, Marine Parade, Minehead, Seaton, Teignmouth and Upton House (Poole), the biggest contingent as always was at Longrun Meadow (19 runners). #parkrun #running #wmmajors