Local parkruns – Saturday 15th March 2014

The attendance at Ashton Court is creeping back up. It was 283 this week compared with 282 last week. The Bristol & West attendance was slightly down, but this was probably due to the Midland 12 & 6 Stage Road Relays on Sunday. However thanks to Pete Mountain and Gary Jennings for volunteering prior to running at Birmingham.

Continuing from last week, the warmer weather seems to have improved the numbers of PBs. There were four today at Ashton Court from Steven Swan, Latife Comlek, Paul Burgess and Jennifer Nowlecki.  The Performance of the Week is awarded to Steven Swan on his twenty-eighth run at Ashton Court. The regulars will know how hard it is to improve your time, the more often you run. Special mention should be made of last week’s award winner Paul Burgess, who had a PB for the second week running on his seventieth run.

It was also good to see Carron Downer back on the hill, having recovered from illness. One notable absentee was Alison Engledew who has volunteered for a number of weeks whilst awaiting knee surgery. The op was on Saturday, so we look forward to Alison’s return in the near future. Congratulations are due to Neil Miller on running his fiftieth parkrun.

There were thirteen club runners at Little Stoke and two at Chipping Sodbury. Congratulations to Dave Gladdy, Maggie Salter and Christopher Herbert on PBs at Little Stoke. It was two out of two at Chipping Sodbury with both Jason Bidwell and Isobel Medcroft recording PBs at Chipping Sodbury.

Pomphrey Hill hosted an accidental Bristol and West away day – with seven club representatives running and two volunteers.  Five of these Bristol and Westers were trying the course for the first time, whilst the two returning both achieved PBs – Stuart Price beating his time by over a minute, and Karen Watson beating her time by over 10 minutes!

Roger has already awarded Performance of the Week (POTW) – but a big pat on the back is needed for club regular but first time parkrunner Clare Jolliffe.  Not only was Clare the first lady home; she was fifth overall and set a new course record (20:26 – beating the previous ladies’ record by exactly a minute) she also set a new age grading record of 79.28%.  I’m going to put it down to beginners’ luck! This follows up Charlotte Green’s course record at Little Stoke last week. Is it a matter of setting the alarm clock half an hour earlier and a trip across town for a POTW attempt?

Bristol and West also dominated the SW20-24 category taking second, third and fourth place.  In at second was guest club member Arielle Elton-Walters in 24:09, followed by Emma Jolliffe in 24:28 and Lizzi Elton-Walters (me!) in at 27:04.  The only person I haven’t mentioned so far is Sarah Everitt, who ran with Emma but was a mere speck in the distance to me after the first lap.  Sarah finished in 24:29 to give her second in the VM45-49 category.

Rather than being blatant about their hill, like Ashton Court, the team who like to Play Up Pomphrey (one for the Southerners who enjoy a good pun, there) have hidden it behind a big field, only to be discovered two thirds of the way into each lap.  So this week’s question of the week is: what is better; one big hill or three sneaky hills?

Lizzi Elton-Walters & Roger Brocklesby

Note from Roger Brocklesby. This report has originally just Ashton Court. If anyone wishes to write a small piece each week on Little Stoke, Chipping Sodbury or Pomphrey Hill (just a paragraph will do), please send it to me and I will insert in the main body of the report.