Happy Holidays and Success Everywhere

Berlin Marathon

Richard Hardy and Ryan Snell ran the Berlin Marathon for the first time yesterday. The Berlin Marathon is one of the big events of the marathon-year known for its fast, relatively flat course. This was its 50th birthday too! It didn’t disappoint for Richard and Ryan who were fortunate to have perfect conditions weather-wise for 26.2 miles. Ryan finished in 2:40.53, despite a stitch at 33k, and Richard crossed the line soon after in 2:41.12; not PBs but absolutely fantastic times which rightly deserved a beer afterwards. The full results are yet to be confirmed.

Bolt Round the Holt

A little closer to home, on UK soil, Simon Dimmock was delighted with 5th place in the Portsmouth Lakeside parkrun on Saturday. He finished in 18:44 which was his fastest time since before lockdown. There were 344 runners overall. The very next day, he finished the Bolt Round the Holt 10k at Alice Holt forest near Farnham in sub-40 minutes (39:14). He thoroughly enjoyed the relatively hilly off-road run, on the trails through the forest, and came in 2nd overall. There were 83 finishers.

Barnstaple Half Marathon

In North Devon, Tim Sibley completed the Barnstaple half marathon in 1:35.47. Although the course is relatively flat, there was a brutal head wind for most of the second half, and he was recovering from illness. Despite this he was 2nd in his age group and 29th overall out of 263 finishers.

Taunton 10k

Near home, Matt Frost took part in the Taunton 10k, a gently undulating course through residential areas and along country roads. Due to marathon training and other races he has coming up he used it more as a training run with a 10-mile warm-up! He planned to do the 10k race at target marathon pace but got a bit caught up in it being a race and went slightly quicker than intended. He finished in 38:10, in 16th place. There were 429 runners overall.

The Honiton Hippo

The Honiton Hippo is a very hilly, very muddy (!) trail run of about 7.5 miles. It is a local favourite and was wholly enjoyed by AVR members. Tim Lenton was 4th overall in 56:34 and 2nd in his age group. Eleanor Wood, a day after parkrun success (see below) was first in her age group, 35th overall, in 1:10.49. Other results were Steve Maclure (54th, 1:19.36),  Jeremy Young (81st, 1:28.37), John Wittaker (84th, 1:30.42) and, Samantha Tooze, Helen Boehm and Carolyn Nation (127th, 1:53.20). There were 134 runners overall. Well done all.

Bradley’s Exmouth 10k

Lee Brooker and Matt Chenery also had success in Exmouth running the Bradley’s Exmouth 10k. Known as a popular, tarmacked, officially measured and timed 10k it is a popular run in which Lee Brooker and Matt Chenery ran. Lee took a massive near-10 minutes off his 2023 run finishing in 54:49. Matt finished in 57:31. Well done to both.

parkrun Down Under

Carol Austin continued her successful tour of Oz with a course PB (25:20) at Centennial parkrun and a “perfectly progressive” run. She was 30th female out of 196, with an age-grading of 77.70%, and 200th overall. There were 505 finishers overall.

Italian parkrun

Tony Smith enjoyed the beautiful city of Padua and the friendly Farfalle parkrun. He was 3rd finisher out of 40 on a relatively flat course around the park in 21:45.

Cranbrook parkrun

Closer to home in parkrun tourism terms for Thomas Parsons, Cranbrook Country Park parkrun provided him with a number of successes this weekend. He ran it in 21:25 which is his overall parkrun PB, he was 8th out of 159 runners and was 2nd in his age category. He described it as a great course on the trails of the country park with a fab atmosphere because it was their 3rd birthday.

Exmouth parkrun

Debbie Whiston (19:20) and Simon McClellan (19:43) ran well at Exmouth parkrun on its fast, flat course. Simon ran a 5k, and course, PB and Debbie was 3rd female out of 165. There were 373 finishers in total.

Seaton parkrun

At home, Joel Seward was first finisher in 17:52, pacing Luke Reed to a sub-18 minute parkrun. He also finished, successfully in 17:52, just behind Joel. Matt Hewer was first in his age group with a wholly sub-19 minute run – 18:34 – and 5th overall. Rupert Pady (20:15), Karen Eyre (20:40), James Hawker (21:47), Luke Freathy (23:53), Mark Parsons (24:06), Sarah Farmer (28:49), Shirley Goy (31:11) and Liz Curley (32:37) all ran course PB’s on the pebbles! Eleanor Wood maintained her remarkable record of first on age grade (91.32%) with Karen, second on age grade (84.27%), and a well-deserved first female.

A full set of results can be found here:-

https://www.parkrun.org.uk/seaton/results/latestresults/