Week Ending - 2025/09/07

400 NOT OUT FOR STALWART ANDY

BADGERS unsung hero Andy Smith became the first club member to reach the hugely impressive milestone of 400 parkruns, with his run at Wendover Woods near Aylesbury at the weekend. The well-liked bandana-wearing athlete made his parkrun debut at Kingsbury at the back end of 2013, and for three years, the picturesque Water Park was very much his home. Since then, he has travelled more extensively, covering a wide variety of different locations up and down the country and even abroad. In addition, he has a phenomenal 100-plus volunteer credits to his name and, along with his wife, Holly, has been the driving force behind the phenomenal success of Riversley Park Junior parkrun in Nuneaton. Now in his sixties, his fastest days are behind him, but that has in no way stopped him from giving back to the initiative that has helped so many people since beginning at Bushy Park back in 2004.

Also celebrating a milestone was Claire Bradford, who made it to 200 events with her outing alongside Peter Mann and Fiona Reidy et al in Tokoinranta, Finland and Vicky Brunsdon celebrated her 25th volunteer stint. 

The Great North Run attracted many of the national running headlines and Badgers had representation there in the form of Lee Taylor who ran 97:59 and Liz Peel 2:44:18. Unlucky-in-love Dave Jackson raised hundreds of pounds for the Rainbow Trust, a charity which supports children with a serious illness, and he crossed the line in 1:37 with Nick Miles also ran well in 2:10, again helping to raise much needed cash for the MS Trust. 

Wayne Repton was second in his age category at the Birmingham Running Festival at Sutton Park, taking 45:17 for the 10K distance there. Dave Purvis ran 22:49 at the Run The Wharf 5K near Canary Wharf in London, while closer to home at the Kenilworth Half, there were four Badgers hard at work on Sunday morning.

Wayne Fraser was first back in a personal best time of 1:35, and in-form Susie Stringer took two and a half minutes off her best with a superb run of 1:50:11. Former club Secretary Serena Baker rolled back the years with a resilient 2:13:08 before Anne-Marie Matthews rounded up the action in 2:41. 

Finally, back at parkrun, there were a handful of top ten finishes for members, most notably at Tamworth Castle, where Glyn Broadhurst and Rachael Browne both took second in their respective gender categories. Broadhurst’s rapid 18:59 was one of only two sub-20 runs of the morning, while Browne has been in great shape in 2025, romping home in 22:35 in her home town event. Meg Griffiths finished seventh female in 25:01.

Yvonne Faulkner-Grant travelled to Wrexham to run the Park in the Past parkrun, taking 9th lady in 25:37. Jane Barrett was 3rd female in Gdansk, Poland, in 24:31, and youngster Lilly Wilson continued her fine form in 26:15 at Bedworth, quick enough to earn her 7th place. Last but not least, Chris Horton chalked up his 19th first place of 2025 with a comfortable win at Oaklands, joining the likes of Chris Tweed, Mark Repton, Dave Hill and Keir Hardy amongst others as fellow first place finishers at the Yardley-based event.