Week Ending - 2025/09/28

BADGERS MAKE THEIR MARK AT MARKFIELD

The Markfield 10K took place at the weekend, the penultimate race of the 2025 Leicestershire Road Running League, with 31 Badgers making it round the up and down one-lap course. The race almost failed to take place as a problem with the course medics led to the start being delayed by over an hour. Thankfully, the sun was shining and there was the shelter of a school sports hall to utilise while frantic efforts were made to get the event underway. 

With individual league series winner Matt Scarsbrook enjoying a well-earned break in Turkey, it was left to his fellow flyer Chris Horton to lead the side home, crossing the line in 34:55 and with it his 8th top ten finish in the league this season. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he picked up the prize for finishing first V50 in the race, as well as securing one of only four Rhodium level county standards in the 523-strong field. 

Back in the points as second Badger home was Dave Jackson, who put in a quality shift to record a Gold standard, his time of 39:19 the only other sub-40 effort on a tough course. New boy Lee Taylor continued his improvement with a personal best performance, his 40:33 enabling him to score A-team points for the very first time. Veteran ace Sam Starkey grafted hard, running 41:24 to score for all three possible sides, the men, vet men and league-winning mixed team and just outside the top 100 was the long striding Matt Green, who gutsed his way to an excellent 42:27, completing a good day’s work for the title-winning men’s vets team. Neil Rose made his first foray into the scoring six with a great PB effort of 42:54 before vice-captain Dave Jenkinson helped himself to a well-deserved PB of 44:55 on what was his 50th league appearance for the club. His time was over a minute quicker than the one he ran at Watermead Park earlier in the summer. 

Bill Gutheridge sneaked back just inside the 45-minute barrier with another solid run, and Glyn Broadhurst, one of the most capped Badgers of all time, helped pace women’s captain Megan Griffiths to a ladies' leading 45:54 and 28th place in the race. New signing Dan Hilton has made good progress since joining on a free transfer and he weighed in with a quality PB time of 47:20. David Craig edged out Chicago-bound Dave Purvis in a close dash for the line before up-and-coming Susie Stringer clocked 47:51 to lead the vet ladies' side home as they chase the final promotion spot into the top flight. Jane Barrett (51:16) dug deep, as did Hannah Burgess (52:02), as they rounded out both the ladies' and vet ladies’ scorers. With one race to go, it will be a straight shoot-out with Wigston Phoenix at the Rotherby 8 in a fortnight for the vets.

There were decent runs for Rob Crow and Simon Payne, while Ashley Taylor made a welcome return to the fold as he closes in on 100 caps. One of the performances of the day came from Mark Reynolds, who lopped nine minutes off his PB with a time of 50:07. The V55 star has been training well of late and had high hopes of breaking 50 minutes, a barrier well within his capabilities on a more sympathetic course. Chris Young, Rhys Hopwood and Paul Cooper all performed well for the men, with Joanne Crow, Bryany Sherwood and Jill Miller all having excellent runs too. Joe Jenkinson and Erica Bassford ran in tandem with Sharon Jackson, Liz Peel and an improving Sara Hawkins, all going strongly for the team in black and white. 

Away from the league action, Mark Cox, already certain of a second-place finish in the V40 standings in the LRRL, was one of four Badgers tackling the Lake District-based Valleys event. In the 70-mile 7-Valleys event, Cox took a superb 11th place overall with an epic run of 14 hours and 18 minutes, his race covering an eye-watering 13,500 feet of gradient. Chris Tweed and Adrian Payne acquainted themselves with the 5-Valleys race, a 36-mile course over similarly spectacular yet unsympathetic terrain. Tweed finished in an admirable 7 hours and 27 minutes to make the top fifty in a field in excess of 750, an outstanding achievement, while Payne sadly had to retire three hours in due to a fetlock injury. In the shorter 3-Valleys race (14 miles), Ryan Preece made the top ten with a battling 1:38, putting a marker down as a genuine contender for next year’s Shrove Tuesday Ball Game in Atherstone. 

At the Robin Hood Half Marathon in Nottingham, Suzy Farrell ran a good time of 1:58:03. Parkrun saw plenty of action on Saturday, with highlights including Lilly Wilson’s first-place finish at Bedworth in a PB time of 24:57, beating her mum, Kat, into second place by 51 seconds. David Grant and Yvonne Faulkner-Grant both made the top ten at Conwy, Wales, with David running a splendid 20:06 in 8th overall. At Tamworth, Carl Ford continued to make giant strides forward as he cruised to a parkrun PB of 26:49 at the Castle Grounds. And one-to-watch youngster Nessa Miller, aged 9, ran 25.27, when her previous best was 27.30, an incredible run.