A delayed catch up for parkrun corner as I’ve been away helping my parents quite a bit recently.
Back in September we had a great trip down to SW London for a sunny lap of Bushy. We beat our club record attendance for Bushy with 16 of us there. Dan Newman celebrated his 200th here (achieved 29% Dunstable Downs, 20% Tring and 12% Wendover Woods) and Huw Moreton managed an all-time PB, knocking over a minute off his previous PB. His dad, Tom, will have to watch out!
Well done to Josh Frewin who ran his fastest ever parkrun in a time of 17:53, knocking 2 seconds off his previous best. Now up to joint 8th fastest TRC parkrunner, level with Tate Eldred.
And in major news, a TRC 1st, a big round of applause for Katie Haines who is the first member to achieve position bingo, getting all the finish positions from 00 to 99. Finishing in position 640 at Bushy meant she got the elusive ‘40’ that she needed!
Severine was at Lincoln parkrun, where she was able to run a good chunk of the course with her 4 year old nephew. He enjoyed it so much that at dinner he asked if they could go again the next day! I expect Severine will be introducing him to Sunday junior parkruns soon.
There were also course PBs for both Ben and John O’Keeffe (Rushmere), Lorraine Hurford and Mark Tikaram (Bushy), Amanda Fernandez (at both Dunstable and Cassiobury), Chris Vile (Leavesden) and Huw Moreton (Wendover Woods).
Well done to Neil Adcock on earning his green shirt, running his 250th, (achieved 11% Wendover Woods, 7% Tring and 49% single visits to different locations, (lots of tourism!)). He chose a very scenic run (and one that is definitely on my 2-do list) with a family trip to Portrush in N. Ireland, a course totally on sand and was the furthest travelled that week. Other “furthest travelleds” on the subsequent weeks included Jez Wood’s trip to Strathclyde and Steve and Louise Bladen’s family run at Wollaton in Nottingham, visiting daughter Izzie at uni.
Other milestones have included Carole Page’s 200th at Dunstable (achieved Tring 44% and Dunstable Downs 34%) and Richard Murphy running his 350th at Wendover (achieved Tring 53% and Wendover Woods 25%). Well done both.
A special parkrun corner mention for Joni Duncan, who, prior to this 3-week round-up hadn’t run a parkrun. So welcome with not only your 1st run, but your 2nd where you achieved “Groundhog Day” by getting an identical time to your 1st week and then a PB this week.
Well done to Anna Ashwell and Amanda Fernandez who achieved their lowest ever barcodes with 16 and 23 respectively.
Podiums over the 3 weeks included: Ben O’Keeffe (1st at Rushmere) twice, Richard Bedlow (2nd at Dunstable), Tom Moreton (2nd at Wendover), Josh Frewin (3rd at Eden Project), Liz O’Keeffe (2nd female at Rushmere), Becky Raftery (2nd female at Wendover), Louise Bladen (3rd female at Dunstable) and Hermione Houston (3rd female at Wendover).
I’m walking on Saturday mornings currently and the past 3 weeks have had 3 great walks at Bushy, Dunstable Downs and Wendover Woods. Great to be able to admire the fantastic scenery of our local parkruns and the large park and rutting stags at Bushy. My 1-2hr Saturday coffee social is now preceded by a 1-hour walking social with some great chats. As well as the exercise, I think the Saturday mornings are one of the best prescriptions for mental wellbeing.
If you’re staying local this week, you have a bit of a choice. I’d originally put in the calendar our monthly TRC trip with this month a visit to Wendover Woods. So, great if you can make that. Alternatively, if you fancy heading east instead, Dave Carey will be running his 150th at Dunstable Downs. Enjoy it wherever you are.
But what about Angelo and Ros’s FA Cup exploits I hear you cry. Since our last update there have been 2 rounds….Angelo Lucatello and Ros Cranston continued their FA cup tourism in September with a trip to the east coast seaside for Gorleston Cliffs parkrun and later watched Gorleston beat St Albans, their best cup run since the 1970s. Gorleston faced Horsham last week away so Angelo and Ros headed to Horsham parkrun where Horsham ended Gorleston’s run. Now I don’t know about you but sucked in by their adventure, I found myself following the latest FA Cup round draw – the League 1 and 2 teams have now joined in. Semi-professional Horsham will be away to face Chesterfield of League 2 in November. So it’s a trip to Derbyshire for Angelo and Ros.
And finally a little alphabetic quiz – starting this week with the letter “A” – Can you guess the 3 parkruns beginning with “A” that have seen the current TRC runners at them the most? No prizes just something to get those parkrun braincells going.
See some of you on Saturday
Andy Evans
