Week Ending - 2025/05/04

MARTTS BIRMINGHAM BRILLIANCE

Badgers legend Matt Scarsbrook produced a scintillating performance at the Birmingham Half Marathon at the weekend coming within four seconds of his personal best over a course not renowned for producing super quick times. As ever, the support in the second city was fantastic and Scarsbrook set off at a rate of knots in a field packed with quality. Just fifteen seconds separated the first four home, the Baddesley Ensor man being fourth back in a quite magnificent 68:16. There will be little opportunity to rest following this epic 13.1 mile dash as next weekend sees Scarsbrook defend his crown at the Bosworth Half Marathon in the Leicestershire Road Running League.

There were some super full marathon performances too as Carl Savage produced an excellent 3:42 in the Belfast marathon so he did and at Manchester, David Jackson rolled back the years with his fastest marathon post ankle surgery with a brave 3:46 effort that even managed to incorporate an impromptu shopping trip mid run.

The Yorkshire Three Peaks trail event saw a handful of Badgers go toe-to-toe so to speak with Olympic Triathlete Alistair Brownlee. Adrian Payne finished a fine 74th in 4 hours dead with team mate Mark Cox also making the top 100 six and a half minutes later. Dave Jenkinson managed the arduous course in a shade over five hours in a race so tough that over one third of its starters fail to finish.

In the relay event, Jimmy Dewis & Ryan Moore ran the opening leg before handing onto the pacy pair of Cheryl Dewis & Megan Church. Veteran aces Stefan Martin and Dave Purvis bought the baton home in 43rd place overall, a fine effort.

Suzy Farrell did four laps at the Big Bear Bat challenge at Beacon Hill in 2 and a half hours.

Parkrun saw a number of impressive achievements, none more so than Pip Weston who ran a superb 25:13 to finish 21st female. However, the most amazing element of this run was that the V60 club record holder became the first female Badger in the club’s history to record a wava rating in excess of 80% (80.37%) a quite magnificent achievement and is a testament to how she has looked after herself in this stage of her career, to be able to produce such incredible numbers when nature is slowing her body down.

Kingsbury saw a Badgers double as Ryan Preece returned to action after a lengthy injury lay off. He beat off Mark Cox who clocked a PB of 18:30 in second while Liberty Underhill finished first female on a great morning for the club as Dave Jackson produced textbook splits of 4:03, 4:04, 4:05, 4:02 and 4:00 to make the top ten in 20:14, his fastest parkrun at Kingsbury this month.

Matt Green and Jane Barrett both made the top ten at Valentines Parkrun in Ilford. Rachel Crump was third at Bosworth, while Rachael Browne, Megan Griffiths and Mark Repton all made the top ten at Tamworth. There was only one winner however and that was the ageless Glyn Broadhurst who sped round in a superb 18:37 to take top spot, making him the sixth Badger to triumph overall at the Castle Grounds in 70 races since the event’s inception.