Week Ending - 2024/04/28

PRAISE DEE!

A handful of Badgers continued to rest after their travails at the London Marathon last weekend but there were still a number of big-hitters in action across a range of parkruns around the region. At Kingsbury Water Park, Dave Jackson returned to winning ways after a hiatus lasting over six and a half years. The pugnacious head of recruitment has had a troubled few years in the world of running culminating in surgery to a bothersome long-standing ankle problem. While many competitors would have used the opportunity to gracefully hang up their shoes, Jackson, affectionately known as Big Dee to his teammates, has dug deep, determined to get his running back on track. Already a multi-time parkrun winner, with a PB of 17:27, the one-time self-appointed elite performance director ran splits of 6:08, 6:17 and 6:12 before sending it in the closing stages to take the win by seven seconds, a magnificent return to action from one of the most popular members of the club (V45). Chris Tweed was third back in a time of 19:30, fourteen seconds off Jackson’s 19:16. Mark Coggan (19:46), Matt Green (21:35) and Jane Barrett (25:24) all made the top ten in their genders. 

Another Dave showing the way was Dave Hill, who decided to recover from his London effort with a dominant parkrun win at Cannock Chase in a super quick 16:35. Maggi Savin-Baden recorded her fastest parkrun in four years with a classy 27:44 at Long Eaton, giving the esteemed Professor of Pace a wava rating in excess of 72%, a magnificent achievement. Glyn Broadhurst and Meg Griffiths each took third place at East Park, Wolverhampton with their times of 18:36 and 21:51. 

Suzy Farrell ran 22:29 to take a superb second at Beacon in Lichfield while Mark Repton was second at Aston Hall with his brisk 20:41, Bill Gutheridge ran 24:00 to also make the top ten there. 

Eight Badgers travelled to Coventry for the spring half marathon there. David Grant was the first back in an excellent time of 98:37 making the top 200 overall. Chris Young has been building on his excellent 2023 season and weighed in with a quality 1:42:27. Victoria Jones finished 12th in her age category to be the first female Badger back in a wonderful 1:56:14 while Paul Cooper ran the second quickest half of his storied career in 1:56:28.

Peter Coogan (2:02:18) and wife Hannah (2:11:09) both produced excellent runs with V60 ace Nick Miles going well in 2:08:32. 100 Marathon Club members Karen Thompson and Liz Peel finished strongly in 2:06 and 2:07 respectively. 

At the Big Bear Bluebell Challenge, Carl Savage racked up marathon number 16 of his career. Lee Talbot ran a half marathon PB in 1:41:05 and Hannah Craig went even further, making her marathon debut in Hamburg, Germany in a super 4:56. Eve King and Juliette Trollope both completed the Longhorn 10K in testing conditions, the time 1:19.