Week Ending - 2025/05/03

MAGGI IS SPRITELY AT SPROATLEY

Seasoned rock-climbing academic and cake baker extraordinaire, Maggi Savin-Baden, added yet another string to her ever-expanding bow of talents by running a six-mile road race faster than ever before. A long-time Badger and something of a late starter to running, the V60 star is now in an age bracket where running personal bests are virtually unheard of, certainly after over a decade in the field. But at a super flat course in the village of Sproatley in Humberside on a perfect Spring evening, the well-respected University professor pulled out all the stops to clock 54:16, a gold plus standard time and an unbelievable four-minute personal best over a distance well raced in previous seasons – a quite remarkable achievement, and keeps her well on course for recording one of her best seasons ever.

At the Milton Keynes Marathon, the experienced Anne-Marie Matthews amazed all, including herself, with a personal best time of 4:58. This comes after almost thirty previous attempts at the distance and with age now against her, this feat is something not to be sniffed at, let that be known.  

The Birmingham Half Marathon saw Dave Purvis run a new PB, with his 98:44 in the second city. The pacy Megan Church and her gym-buddy Bryany Sherwood ran in tandem to get round in 2:06:35 ahead of next week’s league half marathon at Market Bosworth, and Serena Baker provided a touch of class as she rolled off a nifty time of 2:10:38. Anna Savin-Baden ran the Birmingham 10K in 62:42, where Fiona Audley was first Badger back in 53:15. 

On the track, up-and-coming Mia Cox ran a quite superb 5:36 in the 1500m to clock a PB in the Youth Development League. And at the Badgers club time trial, Dan Ash (20:32) and Dan Yoxall (22:14) both ran new 5K bests at an unhelpfully windy Kingsbury. 

The Big Bear Dragonfly Challenge at Pooley Park attracted a number of Badgers. David Grant finished second overall in the six-hour slog fest, covering a whopping 33 miles. Behind him was fellow veteran Paul Grubb, who amassed a very impressive 30 miles. Yvonne Faulkner-Grant ran a solid 19 miles, Judy Parkes managed a half marathon distance along with Liz Peel, while Anne-Marie Matthews also ran ahead of her marathon and Fiona Meldrum notched up six laps of her own.  

There were celebrations galore at Kingsbury parkrun where Leesa Dennis and Merv Jones marked their 300th parkruns and Gail Gunn notched number 250. Megan Griffiths finished first lady in a rapid 22:43, with Alice Belcher showing a good turn of speed to end up eighth lady in a course best 25:16. Adrian Payne performed heroically in 19:08 to take sixth overall.

There was a top ten finish for the rapid Ryan Preece, second at The Wammy in 17:21, and with it the distinction of the fastest parkrun of the weekend for the club. Matt Green and Jane Barrett both made the top ten in Italy at Mare di Lucca parkrun. Rachael Browne was first Badger back at Babbs Mill and fifth lady in 23:56. Jo Crow once again placed highly at Barmouth, in fifth place for the ladies, while Krystal Knight ran a parkrun PB at Tamworth Castle with her swift 26:55.