WELCOME TO 2024!
With Christmas and New Year’s now behind us, it was back to our usual training schedule this week. Or, so we thought. More on that later.
Starting off the new Croft year was the final social run over the festive period, held at Shobdon Wood, led by Club Chairman – Huw. The route was approximately 5 miles, a little bit longer for our faster runners, but nevertheless hilly and muddy. Something that we’ve come to love during our runs up at Shobdon.
New Year’s Day also saw the NYD 5k hosted by Running Monk at Bishop’s Castle in Shropshire and featured several of our up and coming runners from our Junior Team. Join us in giving a big well done to Summer, Taite and Ted. Ted’s dad; Oliver, also ran alongside him. Great job all.
There were also a number of Parkruns taking place on New Year’s Day, with Crofties appearing at both Hereford and Newtown. Nikki decided to tackle Hereford and finished in 30:33, whereas in Newtown, Eric finished 3rd in 18:09, before heading to our Social Run at Shobdon Wood.
On Tuesday, the first of our 2024 training sessions, the weather decided to put a halt on proceedings. Heavy rain, flooded roads and the closure of that night’s training location meant that we had to cancel. But come Thursday, the roads were clear, the weather dry and numerous CARC runners were itching to get back down to business. The session, led by Huw at Shobdon Church, was all about perfecting our runners abilities with hill strides and long, flat intervals. A great session to start the year and those all important marathon training plans that are starting to come into fruition.
With Saturday comes more Parkrunning.
Toby and Nigel were the two Sky Blues to appear in the top ten this weekend at Ludlow Parkrun, finishing in 4th and 6th respectively. Toby, alongside his dog Sonny, managed to set a new PB in 21:48. Bronwyn was our first female to cross the line.
At Hereford Parkrun, Sam J finished in 2nd place, with a new PB of 16:18. There were also PBs for Owen (22:14) and Louise P (27:35), with Lou being the first Croft female across the line.
Finally, Eric was over in Builth where he finished 1st in 18:06.
On Sunday, a small Croft group decided to head over to Hergest Ridge for a 7 mile “chatty” run over the hills. With beautiful views and numerous snow showers, the group made the most of their Sunday morning running alongside the wild horses before bumping into fellow Croftie, Eric, who was also in the area, tackling the Kington 8 Peaks – a run that Croft runners have come to know well. Well done all.
And that brings us to the end of the first Croft week in 2024. More fun awaits our runners in the coming weeks. All which will be shared here!
Don’t forget, we’re always on the look out for your race reports for the website, so get posting them on Facebook or send them to either Sam H, Huw or myself (Bronwyn).
