A beer mile? Who knew there was such a thing or that it would be contested at Tamworth Athletics Club on Thursday, 21st September? Well there is, and it was! Described by Beermile.com as ‘in equal parts gastric challenge and athletic endeavour, competitors are required to drink a 355 ml beer (5% minimum ABV) before every quarter of a mile of the track, totalling four beers in the one mile course’. Peeler Wayne King brought home the winners’ trophy for the Peel Road Runners in a time of 7:44, beating his nearest Tamworth AC rival by just 4 seconds!
Peel Road Runners had a good turnout of runners at the Tissington Trail half marathon on Saturday and Sunday. Running Saturday’s event in beautiful sunshine, Claire Guffick was first home for the club in a personal best time of 2:10:36, followed by Ann Hill (2:31:17 PB), Roger Eastaff (2:31:26 PB); Lee Guffick (2:58:07) and Wendy Bowyer (3:12:52). At Sunday’s event on the same course but with cloudier and overcast conditions, Sarah Boffey ran a personal best time of 2:08:40.
On Sunday, George Hope ran the second of his marathon ‘Majors’ at the Berlin marathon, having completed New York last year. He ran a solid first half but he reported that he “couldn’t keep it up in the second half as my hips, quads and hamstrings all gave up on me at about 34km”. However, he still crossed the line in 4:30:24, which was a great run under the circumstances and he could say that he had run the race on the same day as the women’s marathon world record was broken at Berlin (Tigst Assefa from Ethiopia finished in 2:11:53, taking 2:11 off the previous record!)!
At the weekend’s parkruns, Darren O’Leary was first home for the club at Kingsbury in a time of 22:52. He was followed by Chris Bennett (23:31); Simon Gordon (24:05); Lisa Stretton (25:17); Roger Lloyd (25:26); Jackie Tierney (28:17); Wendy Roe (31:21 – Personal Best); Dave Fern (31:22) and Emma Whorwood (34:22). Parkrun tourists included: Tim Mudd (27:24) at Severn Valley, Bridgnorth; Mark Boffey (28:44) and Sarah Boffey (31:35) at Irchester, Wellingborough; Mike Shelton (21:32) and Sophie Galloway (26:34) at Beacon Park, Lichfield; Ian Orton (22:51) and Michael Hughes (30:40) at Quakers Walk, Devizes; Steph Attenborough (33:15) at the inaugural parkrun at Clarence, Bury and Allen King (23:35) at the inaugural parkrun at Sense Valley Country Park, Ibstock. Steph Attenborough also volunteered at the Queen’s Park junior parkrun in Bolton on Sunday.
