Parkruns, Poppies and PBs

This week saw two Squirrels hitting major parkrun milestones. Ellie Scott chose the Stevenage course to run her 200th parkrun. Reflecting on her parkrun memories she reminisced about running her first ever parkrun at Norwich in an “exhausting 26:39, and I was hooked straight away”. Since that day she has run 24 different courses and has got her personal best (PB) down to 22:18. For Ellie it hasn’t just been about running the Parkruns herself, but encouraging her family to get involved. Ellie’s Dad is now a Run Director for Norwich, Ellie’s Mum has beaten her by achieving her 250th milestone t-shirt and even her sister who refused to run outside has earned her 100 milestone t-shirt! Ellie’s parkun highlight was marshalling at the Norwich Christmas Day Event where they had 1100 runners and some of the most fantastic costumes! Ellie credits parkrun entirely for getting her into running and it was the need to get a faster parkrun time that led her to join North Herts Road Runners!

Jennie Fraser celebrated the 50th time she had remembered her barcode this week at Letchworth Parkrun, finishing as 2nd Lady! Describing her parkrun journey Jennie said “I love how friendly and versatile parkrun is, whichever one you go to you meet lots of smiley faces. Everyone is there to run their own way: be it for speed work, parkrun tourism or for a social chatty run.” Her most memorable one was in Inverness the day before the Loch Ness Marathon as it was full of International runners all using it as shake out run! Jennie particularly enjoys there being a course in Letchworth so she can build parkrun into her long run either to end it with a strong finish or in the middle and run there and back. Particularly as it’s a cross country course, so it means that she gets to run through all the deep puddles and splash everyone who is trying to avoid them!

Kat Gourd took part in the Remembrance Run Essex 10k race in Saffron Walden on Saturday. It was a fairly flat 2-lap course around the former Debden Airfield, which is now used as a British Army base. The chilly morning spurred Kat on to run her fastest 10k in a new PB of 47:24.

Elwyn Howell travelled to Walton on the Thames to complete the Poppy Day half marathon, taking 7 minutes off his previous time, finishing in 2:03:24.

Jim McConnel went west to a very soggy Cirencester Cross Duathlon on Remembrance Sunday. McConnel raced the technical off road course of run (2 miles), bike (10 miles), run (2 miles) and managed to pull away to take the victory by over 30 seconds in a time of 1:07:00. He described the day as “a short but super hard day out, testing every undertrained core muscle I possess.”

PARKRUN RESULTS: Stevenage: Naomi PARKINSON, 25:09, Ellie SCOTT, 25:10, Jane CLARKE,35:14, Sarah MITCHERSON, 38:38 Letchworth: Matthew SAYERS, 21:41, James DALTON, 22:39, Ian HARVEY, 23:34, Rhia BOTHA, 25:42, Jennie FRASER, 26:15, Philip FLACK, 29:20, Carl GOODRUM, 30:16, Alan HAZLEHURST, 30:26, Carol GOODRUM, 35:25, Glyn BLAKEY, 36:05 Upton Court: Brian JUDKINS 35:31 Clare Castle: Patrick NORRIS, 33:28, Steve BRENTON 2:25 Exeter Riverside: Andrew COATES 21:58 (PB) Panshanger: Chris POOLE, 27:48 Great Denham: Vincent WRIGHT, 19:20 Dunstable Downs: Helen GIFFIN, 32:10 Irchester Country: Carl HASKELL, 23:41