Distance Running News, 22-26 November 2018

25 November 2018

Alex Bampton produced his best ever road race performance with an excellent time of 24:43 for a fine third place at the Wolverton 5 mile road race in Milton Keynes. After a fast start, a pack of six runners established themselves and remained together until the third mile where Irish internationals Matt Bergin (Bedford) and Kevin Seaward (Cardiff) upped the pace and split the group. After finding himself back in fifth place the Cheltenham runner then picked off Josh Lunn (Bedford) and Danny Hallam (Wreake & Soar Valley) to smash the 25 minute barrier for the first time as Bergin (24:27) and Seaward (24:31) filled the top two spots. Also on the roads, Rhys Park showed good form at the Dana Point 10k in California where he placed seventh with a time of 30:29. Closer to home, Alice Taylor enjoyed a win as she finished as first lady home at the 6 mile multi-terrain Howling Bull run from the Herefordshire village of Walford.

Club members again made good use of various parkrun events over the weekend with Chris Booth (17:03) claiming his first Cheltenham parkrun first place, Dave Aubrey (18:08), Simon Critchley (18:27) and George Hawthorne (18:37) made the top five whilst Matt Evans (20:27), James Wilkinson (20:37) and Mike Ede (20:59) also enjoyed a run out. At what must be one of the countries toughest parkruns, Gareth Edwards (20:41) was first across the line at the Mount Edgcumbe event in Cornwall, whilst there were also first places for Liam Roarty (17:19) at the Malahide event in Dublin and for Dave Tomlin (18:27) in Newent. Kaitlyn Sheppard (20:27) finished as the leading lady in Tewkesbury in seventh place overall, a feat matched by new club member Caroline Cotterell (21:07) in Barnstaple where Nick Holliday (20:06) was fourth man home. Steve Bradley (19:19) finished ninth at the Kingsway event in Gloucester whilst Andy Prophett (19:19) finished twelfth at the wonderfully titled The Wammy parkrun in Newcastle-under-Lyme.