Week Ending - 2025/07/20

JENKINSONS GRUELLING 32 MILER

Badgers men’s vice-captain Dave Jenkinson took on the longest race of his career to date, a monstrous 32-mile ultra-marathon in the Chilterns, part of the Maverick X-Series, which saw a handful of Badgers competing over three of the four different distances on offer. Setting off close to Henley on Thames, Jenkinson’s Ultra distance was the longest of the lot and the one time V50 marathon club record holder put his famed endurance capabilities to the test with a battling display that saw him take 38th place overall and third in his age category, with a time of 8:02:17. Months of training and preparation had gone into getting right for this event and the popular 53 year old was rightly delighted with his performance on the first wet weekend in a while. 

The middle distance race saw Ryan Preece take third overall in 1:39:59, another podium finish for the men’s skipper. He was no doubt indebted to the selflessness of Adrian Payne, who guided him through several tricky sections and helped pace the mathematics boffin to a podium finish. Payne finished one second behind the self-styled “Swede of Speed”. For the ladies, Sharon Jackson was the first female Badger back. In the short-distance event, James Dewis showed his considerable pace to take an age category win and 6th position overall in a medium quality field. Erica Bassford, Joe Jenkinson and Dave Jackson were amongst the other Badgers taking part in the event. 

The RunThrough Birmingham Running Festival at Sutton Park saw Neil Rose put in a good show with his time of 45:47, a day after achieving a new parkrun PB of 20:44 at Tamworth Castle, where Katy Clemons finished a fine 7th lady. The highest positional finish at parkrun came jointly from youngster Lilly Wilson, who sped to 4th place (female) at Bedworth in 27:02, ahead of experienced team mate Lucy Marchi. Suzy Farrell was also 4th but at East Park, Wolverhampton, in 25:19, where Colin Lees notched up his 350th parkrun appearance, the third highest total at the club behind the legendary Andy Smith and the esteemed former club secretary David “DC” Craig. 

Elsewhere, the speedy Sam Starkey was the only Badger breaking 20 minutes at the weekend with his swift 19:54 at Milano Nord in Italy, good enough for 8th place. Megan Griffiths took 9th female at Yarborough Leisure Centre while Holly Smith, wife of the aforementioned Andy, ran well to end up 7th lady at Brunswick Park.