Week Ending - 2025/07/06

HORTON SHATTERS V50 MILE RECORD

After a busy few weeks for the club during June, things settled down race wise as the year crossed the halfway point and into July and once again Chris Horton was in action as he sped to a new V50 club record for the one-mile distance with a superb run at the sparsely populated Ealing Mile race in west London. On one of the hottest days of the year, the Atherstone athlete paced his effort impressively to finish twelve seconds and one place behind runaway race winner Tom Aldred, one of the top ten V45 athletes in the country. It gave Horton his 20th club record over the last 12 months, eight at V40, the rest at V50, to continue what has been a phenomenal purple patch for the dad of one. Mark Coggan’s old record of 5:43 was butchered down to 4:57 as another pre-season goal of running a sub-5 mile in his fifties was duly achieved.

Elsewhere, Adrian Parkes was in fine form at the Lutterworth 5-mile race, helping himself to a Silver Plus standard time thanks to a fabulous run of 39:12, a personal best too for the 62-year-old who only took up running competitively in recent years. His wife Judy, was also in action, clocking a very respectable 48:13 in the race which has a strong Badgers connection in that former member Jo Pylyp helps to organize the event. Harry Lines ran a hugely impressive 43:35 in the Shrewsbury 10K, his first senior competition race and Vicky Brunsdon completed the 15K Tough Mudder event.

Parkrun saw plenty of action, notably at Bedworth where Kat Wilson and her daughter Lilly both achieved personal bests with their times of 25:37 (6th place) and 27:01 (12th place) respectively, a fantastic achievement to enjoy one PB at the weekend, but two in the same household at the same event is particularly memorable.

There were top ten finishes for Lucy Marchi (24:31) also at Bedworth, as well as Sam Starkey and Jane Barrett at the Fire Service College parkrun. Suzy Farrell took 5th at Oaklands in 24:59 with birthday girl Rachael Browne taking second place at Coronation Park in Swadlincote (24:00). Mark Repton ran yet another sub 20 as he powered his way into the top ten at Tamworth and Chris Horton celebrated his 500th timed run event with his 38th win at Kingsbury and 73rd over all locations with a dominant 17:16, which saw Danny Warren take a comfortable fourth place as part of a longer run and Bill Gutheridge breaking into the top ten with a speedy 21:28.