The Abingdon marathon is renowned for its fast and flat course, so is a draw for many runners seeking a personal best for a marathon and for Peel Road Runner, Wayne King, this would be his first attempt at the distance after a period of promising and very consistent training. Unfortunately the weather was against the runners on Sunday with heavy rain and wet roads hampering their efforts. However, despite this, Wayne had an outstanding run crossing the finish line just 23 seconds over the magic “3 hours” in a truly impressive time of 3:00:23. On a different day with better weather conditions, it’s not difficult to imagine that this time will be well and truly broken!
Unfortunately, the weather proved too much for the Droitwich half marathon, which was cancelled due to a flooded course. Having trained for the race, several Peelers decided to test themselves against the Peel RR half marathon course which was designed to be run as a virtual race during the Covid Lockdown period. Despite not ‘racing’ the route, the 13.1 mile course (based on the north side of Tamworth) gave them a good indication of how their training was progressing for their key half marathon race next month at Clowne near Chesterfield.
At the weekend’s parkruns, Kingsbury was again the most popular with the Peelers. Club member Mike Shelton had the double celebration of being able to claim his award for volunteering for the 100th time at Kingsbury (that’s a lot of Saturday mornings given over to helping others!) and also for knocking out his fastest time in 2022, crossing the line in 20:16.
First over the finish line for the club was James Stretton, who stopped the clock at 19:44, closely followed by Mike Shelton (20:16); Ben Dorkins (personal best time of 21:28); Tim Clark (22:12); Lisa Stretton (25:37); Stella Taylor (27:02); Joy Sykes (30:48); Helen Dempsey (33:11); Alison Perry (33:33); Wendy Bowyer (41:38); Alison Dolphin (41:40) and Chris Norris (49:02). Sarah French and Roger Eastaff volunteered as finish scanners, whilst Wendy Bowyer helped with communications at Kingsbury.
Parkrun tourists included: Mick Stevenson at Northallerton (33:20); Tony Bryan at Walmer and Deal Seafront (25:38); Emma Barley at Chasewater (38:36); Ian Orton at Babb’s Mill, Solihull (23:10); Tim Mudd at Beacon, Lichfield (26:45); Jackie Tierney at Watermead Country Park, Leicester (28:58) and Michael Hughes at Bramshall Road, Uttoxeter (27:50).
