Author: Peter

This report covers the two weeks from 14th to 27th November, during which time the annual club trip took place along with the concluding race of the 2022 Somerset Series.

The Somerset Series 2022 had 16 races this year, including the Humdinger/Hurtle and Herepath events organised by Running Forever. Scoring for the series is based on the gender finishing position of competitors, with the objective being to achieve the lowest average score across at least 7 races. The club has a few members who participate regularly and the considerable efforts of two of the most reliable competitors from the club have been rewarded this year. Sally Tuer had a hugely successful year, winning a number of age group races which resulted in her placing first overall in the 55-64 category, bagging a very good trophy and an overall top 10 ladies finishing position! Ben Timpson also placed well throughout the year, securing himself a top 10 mens finishing position in the process. Well done to all those who entered the series races this year.

The final race of this year’s Somerset Series was the 5.75 mile Brent Knoll race, up and down the iconic hill. We had 4 club entrants this year, Ben Timpson was first back in 44m57s, followed in by Tom Dymott (50m45s), Mark Wilson (54m11s) and Simon Rowland (1h03m37s).

Marathon regular Georgina Brice was in action again at the Save the Rhino run over in Hertfordshire, completing her 118th marathon and ultra marathon in 5h45m. Also racing ‘out of county’ was Chris Gunn at the Trowbridge Half. finishing in 1h58m.

The annual club trip was to Gran Canaria this year, to run the Maspalomas Marathon and 10k and enjoy some very welcome late autumn sunshine, although it was less welcome during the race! We had 12 runners in the marathon and the general agreement was that times were about 30 minutes slower than usual, due to the heat and direct sunshine during almost all of the race. First club finisher of the two lap course was Chris Grieco, who with some very sensible first lap pacing managed to achieve a negative split in his time of 3h46m. Simon Denson (3h55m) and Sam Wharton (4h01m) were next back either side of 4 hours. A magnificent 7 then came in before the 5-hour mark, led by Paul Parmenter (4h27m) and including Mark Wilson (4h32m), Helen Needs (4h36m), Peter Hall (4h41m), Lisa Denson (4h49m), Chris Gunn (4h53m) and Matt Price (4h56m). Completing the line-up were Chris Reah (5h07m) and Cathy Parmenter (5h20m), ensuring a 100% finishing rate for what was a tough race.

Saz Henderson and Irene Lo Bianco very sensibly opted for the 10k event, although running at pace in the heat was no mean feat. Saz finished in a sprightly 51m48s and Irene managed to achieve the impressive achievement of doing her quickest and longest run ever to finish in 1h11m.

This weekly report won’t include our regular race reports, which will begin again next week.

The past week has been very difficult for Running Forever after we lost James Lewes, one of our most beloved, active and social members. The kind and gentle big man with an even bigger smile.

From joining RFRC James had very much established himself at the heart of the club. He was a regular leader of Group 3 on a Wednesday night where his trademark was the somewhat random incorporation of mini cul de sacs loops. James was also a great participant in races, including completing his first 50-miler this year and traveling to the Florence and Porto marathons on club trips. Most recently, James had joined the committee and had immediately got stuck in writing the weekly reports and it won’t surprise anyone who knew him that he was keen to take on more responsibility.

Whilst this has been an awful time for the club, most of all our thoughts go out to James’ family and friends during this impossibly difficult period.

Rest in peace James – we were amazingly lucky to have you in our running family and will all miss you deeply.

This last week has been a relatively quiet one for RFRC at events. We start in Street with the November edition of the monthly night time 5k run taking place on Wednesday. Ben Timpson cruised around in 19:35 while Nigel Baker finished in 24:53, winning him the first MV70 award for both races in the series so far.

The weekend saw Georgina Brice back on the trail at the Remembrance Marathon on the Thames Towpath near Hampton Court. This was her 50th Phoenix event, earning her not just a poppy-themed medal for her 5:27 finish but also her Phoenix gold wings.

Meanwhile, Scott Weetch and Andy Burgess headed south to the Starcross Shuffle, on the Exe Estuary trail near Powderham Castle. The Shuffle gives you 7 hours to complete as many 6.6 mile laps of the course as you like (or can). Scott Weetch notched up 4 laps to make up the marathon distance in 4 hours 23 minutes while Andy Burgess managed one more lap to take him into ultra territory, completing his 5 laps in 5 hours 24 minutes.

We were well represented at the Longrun Meadow parkrun, with 29 members completing the course. There were plenty of sightings of RFRC at park run events further afield too, in Torbay, Minehead, Seaton, Exeter, Burnham & Highbridge, at Edenbrook and, further again, at Nansen Parken near Oslo in Norway. Back in the UK, eagle-eyed viewers of BBC Spotlight might have spotted Malcolm Hutchings and Kate Mackenzie at the Children In Need edition of the Heartlands parkrun in Cornwall, with Pudsey himself sending the runners on their merry way.

The club had a preponderance of road races last week, which is probably for the best given the weather we’ve been having, although there were still hills aplenty for some.

Sunday saw a fine contingent of 13 club members racing the Bideford 10-miler. The largely flat course along the River Torridge estuary saw some very quick times for the RFRCers, including a few age group placings. First back for RFRC was Ali Bisatt in a blistering time of 1h7m, enough to bag him 3rd in age group. Not far behind was Ben Timpson with a fine performance to finish in 1h8m. He was followed in by two other age group winners. Hannah Kirkman placing 2nd in a time of 1h20m, and also placing second was Nigel Baker in 1h25m. We then had a cluster of finishers who were led back by Lauren Clarke in 1h42m and next was Lucy Stancer in 1h44m before the trio of Sherri Dingle, Karen Chapman and Emma Salter all crossed the line in 1h47m. Rachel Nicholls was well under the 2-hour mark in a time of 1h51m, with Eliza Brodie just over it in 2h02m. The RFRC results finished with almost namesakes Rachel Reid (2h07m) and Sarah Reed (2h16m).

We were meant to have 4 participants at the Cornish marathon but unfortunately one tested positive for Covid, which left Bev Collins, Mark Wilson and Peter Hall to represent the club at the event. Mark produced a terrific performance to finish in 3h43m and grabbed himself a well earned genuine Cornish pasty. Bev was second back for the club, followed by Peter in a reprise of his 100th marathon in 2018 to register his 133rd marathon and ultra finish.

Bucking this week’s road running trend was Dan Devlin who relished the rain, puddles, mud and hills in the Haldon Forest 10k, finishing in 1h20m to receive a well deserved bag of goodies.

A higher than average level of exoticness to parkrun this week – we had the typical attendance of local course including Burham, Exmouth and 19 at Longrun Meadow. Branching out a little further there were also RFRCers at Bowling Park (Bradford), Dulston Country Park and the Eden Project. Further still we had a presence at the Castlerea parkrun in Ireland, but lastly and taking it to the next level one club member made it all the way down under to the event at Burnie in Australia. #runninguk #parkrun

It was another busy weekend for RFRC. First up was our marathon machine Georgina Brice in action on the Thames towpath at the Hemerodromoi Marathon. Hemerodromoi, meaning ‘day runners’ in Greek, were the running messengers of Ancient Greece. Georgina delivered her message in 5:52 and celebrated with a relatively un-Greek cider.

Closer to home was Saturday night’s Moonlit Meadow Run in Taunton’s Longrun Meadow, with a decidedly spooky theme and both a 5km and 10km option. In the 5k event Adrian Troake, cunningly disguised as The Grim Reaper, was the first club member home in 32:20, 6th overall and 1st in his age group. Katy Monk was hot on his heels in 33:51, grabbing the 2nd female position, followed by Alex Watson in 37:09, Gerry Fagan in 39:10, Kate Mackenzie in 40:42 and Kerry-Anne Chapman in 45:07. In the 10k event, James Palmer finished in 52:54 and Dan Devlin in 79:19.

Once the sun was up on Sunday morning, it was off to the Blackdowns for our very own Herepath Half Marathon. Herepaths date back to the 9th century when they were important trade and communication routes between settlements. The half marathon, actually 13.7 miles, follows the Staple Fitzpaine Herepath Trail up and around the highest point on the Blackdowns, so lots of climbing and, after the recent rain, a wide selection of mud, with none more sapping than the infamous Field of Doom. Sam Carden overcame the obstacles in 1:45:42, followed by Simon Malley in 2:10:01, Sarah Henderson in 2:21:01 with Amy Maggs right behind her in 2:21:41. Andrew Phillips reached the cake table in 2:24:03 with Richard Hill making it back in 2:49:36.

Helen Phillips headed further afield to the New Forest for a pony- and pig-strewn scenic 10 mile jaunt, finishing after numerous photo stops in 2:01:46.

We had 39 runners at Longrun Meadow for the 400th edition of the parkrun. Elsewhere, club members were in parkrun action in Cardiff, Hackney Marshes, Seaton, Burnham & Highbridge and Tidworth.

We were relatively thin on the ground last week but the quality of the runs makes up for that. First off racing regular Sally Tuer was up in Gloucestershire for the 40th anniversary running of the Stroud Half Marathon. It was one of those tricky wet and warm days, never the best conditions for racing but Sally still managed to finish just inside her target time when crossing the line in 2:04.

Ray Tutton is another frequent racer and he was over in Oxfordshire for the Abindgon marathon. This flat fast course is very popular with people trying to achieve good for age times for London, or personal best times in general. The event has embraced sustainability and operates with paper cups for drinking and wooden medals. However that virtuous approach didn’t placate the weather gods and it rained throughout the race! Ray cruised home in a very respectable 3:44.

Longest race of the week goes to the RunWalkCrawl Gower 50-miler over in south west Wales. The 50-miler is the longest of 3 available distances, and includes a complete circumnavigation of the Gower Peninsula AONB. RunWalkCrawl is a brand rather than a racing strategy, and it’s a challenging course but not too tough to see off our hardy trio of Andy Burgess, Andy Higham and Dean Bennett. Having said that, the route include runnning along the entire length of a 4-mile sandy beach which tested their resilience to its limit!

First back for the club was Dean who flew out of the blocks, putting in some incredibly quick early miles which were enough to secure an impressive 5th place finish overall with his 8h36m finishing time.

Running together throughout the day the two Andys completed the epic one lap course in 12h50m.

parkrun was a mix of local regulars and some less frequented venues, for RFRC runners at least. Destinations this week included Brighouse, Burnham, Exmouth, Itchen Valley, Nobles, Penryn Campus, Queen’s Park Belfast, The Great Field (Dorchester) and a round 30 at Longrun Meadow. #parkrun #running #ultrarunning

Some things are really worth the wait and the finish of a 100-mile race must rank very highly amongst them, as two club members discovered last week! As well as that incredible example of persistence we also had runners at two of the country’s best loved and well attended races, the Bath Half and the Great South run.

Starting with those last two events, the Great South Run is a firm favourite in the running calendar and it takes place over a flat course around Portsmouth and Southsea. It starts and finishes in the same place on the seafront in Southsea before meandering past various landmarks of the area including HMS victory. A 10-miler is not a common race distance and can be tricky to judge, falling somewhere in between 10k and half marathon pace. Our trio of runners at the event managed to produce very good results, lead home by Ray Tutton in 1:15:20 and then followed back in close succession by Chris Adams (1:32:23) and Peta Aspden (1:35:36).

The Bath Half is a hugely popular race and has been the first foray into half marathon distance for many people in the region. That wasn’t the case for Nick Brazcliffe who has represented the club regularly throughout the year and made it around the gently undulating course in 1:45:27.

The leap from half marathon to 100 miles is unimaginable for most people, but Running Forever has an increasing group of crazies who enter races over distances which would put plenty of folks off driving them! Robin Upton and Sam Wharton are two examples of this interesting breed, whose decisions saw them at 9:00 on Saturday in Goring for the Centurion Autumn 100-miler. The course is four equal distance switchbacks (if you don’t go off course…) in the environs of the Thames valley, returning to base camp every 25 miles. Getting back to the race HQ must be a relief, but it takes increasing amounts of willpower to return to the course as the race progress. Robin and Sam ran the first half together at an incredibly quick pace before settling into their own paces for the final two sections. Robin was targeting an incredible sub-20 hour time and continued to hit the necessary pace to eventually finish in a brilliant 19:52:04. Sam was targeting sub-24 hours, and the quick early miles had given her a great buffer. A truly awful yet heroic and character building final 25-miles, which increased to 27 miles after a navigational error, saw her crush her target to finish in 22:33:29. Both Robin and Sam got the coveted ‘100 miles – One Day’ buckle as a fine reward for their efforts. I’m sure Robin and Sam were both very appreciative to club members Fintan Murray and Mark Wilson for accompanying on the final 25 or 27 miles.

Exotic sounding parkrun course of the week was Dallas Burston Polo Club, which instead of being the kind of place you may find some Texan oil barons is in reality near Leamington Spa. We also had runners at Clevedon, Coventry, Parke, the challenging Woolacombe Dunes course and a decent showing of 27 at Longrun Meadow.

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

In an usual convergence of dates largely owing to the pandemic, this weekend saw the London Marathon and Cardiff Half Marathon take place on the same day, and as you’d expect we had good participation in both. Last week also saw a few others events ranging from a 10k, through a sprint triathlon and, being RFRC we do of course have an ultra marathon to cover!

Firstly, despite the ever increasing challenge of grabbing a place we had 6 runners in the capital racing the iconic London marathon. Ali Bisatt was first finisher for the club in a fantastic time of 3:06:40, followed in by Andrew Saunders in 3:17:28. Sally Tuer produced yet another great performance in what has been a very busy year for her, crossing the finish line in 4:29:31. Next back was Kris Saint in 4:33:30, Joanna Gavins in 4:44:27 and then Rosie Benneyworth in 5:11:50. Each of the runners at London have their own challenges to overcome just to make it to the start line, so congratulations to all 6 for making it to the finish as well!

Not to be left out, Georgina Brice did the NOT the London Marathon, completing it in a great time of 5:32:25.

Over in the Welsh capital we had a good turnout of 12 runners for the always popular Cardiff Half Marathon. So popular that many have already signed up to give it another go next year. First back was Ron Foord in 1:50:12, then a cluster of runners around the 2-hour mark including Darren Purchase (2:00:08), Sam Cross (2:01:16), Damon Butler (2:02:23), Chris Adams (2:03:49), Nadine Prouse (2:08:10) and Jamie Hill (2:09:37). All the others got around the course in under 3 hours, including Katie Baker (2:17:48), Liz Williams (2:33:57), Tanya Gault (2:51:17), Karen Chapman (2:59:50) and Sarah Holloway (2:59:51).

The less high profile events of the week included Ben Timpson in Cornwall for the Poldhu Trail 10k in 53:17, Andy Staples up in Cheshire for the Chester marathon which he whizzed around in 3:07:08 and ensuring we had representation in at least one ultra marathon was Emily Macaulay in the Winding Paths Exe Estuary 50k, completing the race in 7h30m. Race regular Simon Rowland was in action in the Minehead Sprint Triathlon completing the three events in 1:38:51.

A good selection of parkrun locations again this week, with 21 at Longrun Meadow and then ones and twos at Bolberry Down in the South Hams, Hastings, Penrose, Street, Whitby, Worthing and York.