Week Ending - 2025/06/07

SCARSBROOK WINS AGAIN AS CROW FLIES STRAIGHT INTO THE RECORD BOOKS

For the fifth successive race in the Leicestershire Road Running League this year, Matt Scarsbrook stormed to a comprehensive victory with a brilliant show of speed at the Swithland 6 race in Mountsorrel. An early start time of 9:30am was welcomed by the 695 runners who made it to the event, as the race is commonly characterised by warm summer conditions. However, sunny intervals and a moderate breeze were the order of the day, weather-wise, not that it hampered Scarsbrook in any way, as immediately he was out of the blocks and before long out of sight. He crossed the line in 31:28, a minute and a half clear of second place. To add some context to this level of dominance, the next ten runners from second-placed Michael Cheverton (33:00) to fellow Badger Chris Horton in eleventh (34:00) all finished within a minute of each other.  If Scarsbrook is able to win at the Steve Morris 5 race in Desford at the end of this month, and only a fool would bet against him right now, he will have completed a full year of being unbeaten in the LRRL across all the races in which he has been a participant.

Next through for Badgers with a quality 9th place finish was the pugnacious Ryan Preece, who clocked a fine 33:37. The bullish Preece had his eye on the club record prior to the race and was sitting in second place through to halfway. However, the second half of the race saw the Atherstone Ball Game pre-event favourite slide back slightly, but his determined run was pivotal in his side picking up the men’s team prize on the day. Veteran Chris Horton produced a high-calibre run to finish just outside of the top ten, earning the only Rhodium county standard in his club and one of just seven across the entire race.

Danny Warren is closing in on his 100th road league race for the club and gave another full effort as he crossed the line in 34:35 in one of his final league races as a senior athlete, holding off a valiant attack from a rival Owl in the final few hundred meters for 14th position. Skipper Glyn Broadhurst was next home, the second fastest V50 athlete in Badgers history, running an exceptional Diamond standard 37:23. He pipped his teammate Adrian Payne to the line, which meant that his side had all six scorers back inside the top 60. 

Lee Taylor continued his excellent form of late to lead the B-team home in 38:56. Jack Burton-Peet ran 39:00 in 88th spot for a personal best time while Chris Tweed (39:46) nursed his damaged hamstring to the line to complete a solid day’s work for the men’s vet team. Matt Green (41:48) battled hard ahead of the evergreen Jimmy Dewis (42:20), and Neil Rose helped himself to a six-mile PB in 42:34. 

Stefan Martin and Michael Garrett both ran impressive Silver standard times, and youngster Dan Ash finally made his long-awaited league debut with a hard-fought 43:57, his first attempt at the distance too. The seasoned Dave Purvis ran a PB in the same time as Ash, but one place further back, despite his lengthy size 18 feet! Wayne Repton crossed in 44:26 before the genial Rob Crow took the only club record to fall on the day. His 45:39 was good enough to lower the V60 mark by a further 8 seconds, on a day not ideally suited to fast times. The Atherstone man had set his sights on this record some months back and has effectively transformed himself into a six-mile specialist after successfully setting and holding the V50 8-mile record for several seasons previously. He is only the second club member in 2026 to have broken a club record, a mark of how high the bar is set after almost 15 years of the club’s existence.

There was a plethora of veterans home in Crow’s slipstream – Dave Jenkinson, Andy Altoft (45:41 – PB), Adrian Parkes, Marc Corbett, Bill Gutheridge, Martin Graham and Mark Reynolds all soldiering on with Ashley Taylor and Chris Young also making waves. 

The ladies were, as usual, headed out by their captain, Megan Griffiths, who continues to improve season after season. She has not missed a league event for several seasons now and still keeps putting in the performances. Her 43:57 was a personal best time and good enough for 36th place. It has not gone unnoticed that a handful of female Badgers are enjoying a rich vein of form in 2026, and once more there were PB’s aplenty for the usual suspects. Susie Stringer ran a magnificent 45:30 for a place in the top 50 and a personal best. Emma Masser has returned to the club and is going from strength to strength. She was a second and a place behind the speedy Stringer, another personal best. 

Erica Bassford is almost unrecognisable from the athlete who burst on the scene back in 2025. In what is easily her best season ever, she ran another PB time for the distance, this time in 47:18. The same can be said for Kat Wilson, who took a mammoth five minutes off her old best in 47:21. Faster, fitter and leaner, the mum of two has been a revelation for Badgers in 2026. Janey Barrett, currently sitting second overall in the league's V45 age category, is another having a stellar campaign. 48:07 was her time and yet another personal best, remarkable. And Joanne Crow, the most experienced female Badger of all when it comes to league appearances, was another to bag a new best, almost a decade after the last at this distance. She clocked 50 minutes dead, a tremendous achievement, especially given the volume of prior efforts. Alice Belcher was another, clocking a season’s best 50:26. Hannah Burgess, Sharon Jackson and a cycle-weary Judy Parkes put in good shifts with Maggi Savin-Baden once more excelling with a Silver standard, the joint highest alongside skipper Griffiths from any female Badger on the day. Marathon ace Anne-Marie Matthews rounded up a good morning’s work for the club.

There was little action away from the league race this week. At parkrun, Andy Smith reached his 250th volunteer stint, a quite amazing achievement, especially given he has also run more parkruns than any other male Badger currently on the roster. Chris Horton made it to a relatively meagre looking 50 as he helped barcode scan after a comfortable first place at Brunswick Park in Wednesbury.   

Meg Griffiths ran the 32nd first-place finish of her parkrun career with a 23:24 time at Kingsbury, where Adrian Payne, Jill Miller and Rachael Browne all made the top ten in their genders. Mark Repton ran 20:04 at Tamworth to take 7th overall while Suzy Farrell travelled to Poland to complete her parkrun alphabet challenge, earning herself a top ten finish in the process at Zamek.