Hello Crofties and co! Welcome to another Weekly CARC Update. Spoiler alert! This week has been a brilliant one, with lots of races, PBs and one crazy CARC Winter Social and Awards Evening! Get ready because boy, is this a good one!
First things first is a catch up with our Junior runners and their Monday training session at Wigmore School. These sessions are going from strength to strength with an average of 15-20 Juniors attending each week. We’ve also recently welcomed Sue F and Tori on board as newly qualified Coaching Assistants, helping Kelly each Monday train up the Croft runners of tomorrow!
Talking of Juniors, we’ll pop Saffi’s weekend of racing here. First of all she picked up her Series Winner award at the South Wales Junior Presentation evening on Monday night. She would then collect her gold medal from the recent Schools XC fixture in Bromsgrove, where she represented Hereford and Worcester, on Saturday. She also took part in the West Midland Trials for the London Mini Marathon this week. She finished in 9th position, racing in the Under 16 age category at only 13 years of age.
Moving onto our Senior runners. This week’s training took place at Croft on Tuesday and Shobdon Church on Thursday. Tim was coach on Tuesday, putting our runners through a long interval session. On Thursday it was Huw’s turn with a sprint session on the cards.
Friday was this year’s Winter Social and Awards Evening. For 2026, we headed back to The Grove Golf and Bowl in Leominster for a night of bowling fun, tasty food and one of Huw’s brilliant presentations, which this year featured his new glamorous assistant; Paul Parker – I mean, Pauline Parker! There were plenty of awards to give out, including winners from the Club Championship Series to Most Improved Runner to Runners of the Year, all of which would celebrate the brilliance of Croft Ambrey Running Club and our amazing members and their achievements! Awards this year went to:
Club Championship Overall Winner – Female: Kath Hardwick
Club Championship Overall Winner – Male: Sam Juson
Club Championship Female Senior Winner: Nicola Luscott
Club Championship Female V35 Winner: Kelly Bowen
Club Championship Female V45 Winner: Kath Hardwick
Club Championship Female V55 Winner: Stephanie King
Club Championship Female V65 Winner: Sue Wood
Club Championship Male Senior Winner: Sam Juson
Club Championship Male V40 Winner: Steve Partridge
Club Championship Male V50 Winner: Simon Norwood
Club Championship Male V60 Winner: Angus Kirby
Club Championship Male V70 Winner: Rob Wood
Club Championship Male V80 Winner: Guy Whitmarsh
Volunteer of The Year: Pat Davies
Male Performance of The Year: Greg Jones
Female Performance of The Year: Ali Davies
Projenitor Award: Kelly Bowen
Mick Ligema Award Female: Kath Hardwick
Mick Ligema Award Male: Eric Apperley Apperley
Bryan Markham Handicap Award: Stephanie King
Most Improved Runner: Paul Lewis
Chairman’s Award:: Jamie Symonds
Dave Blenkharn Award: Paul (aka Pauline) Parker
Male Runner(s) of The Year: Greg Jones and Sam Juson
Female Runner of The Year: Flora Gunner
We’d like to thank Liza for arranging such a fantastic evening!
Onto Parkrun Saturday! And, with some Croft runners maybe nursing headaches, or just resting themselves for Sunday races, the Croft Parkrun pool was a little quiet this weekend! At Ludlow, it was 2nd place finish for Eric this weekend. His time was 20:10. Richard joined him in the Top 10 in 7th position, with a time of 24:49. Thea was the first female Croft runner this week at Ludlow. She was also 3rd female overall. Her time was 29:06. Volunteer credits this week go to Jamie, Paul, Rob M, Guy, Casper and Seb. Two Crofties ran at Queenswood this week; Mike and Steph K. Both came away with new PB’s of 25:20 and 27:59, respectively. Elsewhere, it was over to Newtown for Steph M, who finished with a time of 25:37. Rounding out Parkrun Saturday is Sam J who headed down to Burnham and Highbridge Parkrun. He finished 1st, with a time of 15:38.
Skipping Parkrun for a good ol’ Fell Race was Flora and Gary who took part in the Coppett Hill Race. Flora told us that this race was around 5.62 miles whith 1106ft of ascent! Flora finished in 64th place and came 3rd in her age category. Her time was 01:02:15. Gary’s time was 01:09:48 and finished in 70th place and 1st in age.
Sunday. A very busy race day this week and one that saw plenty of PBs and Croft awesomeness.
First up is the Forest of Dean Spring Half Marathon, where 5 Croft runners took part. Nigel was first Croft runner home. Jo M was next home and our first female. Janet finished 4th in her age category. Jo M said that she was “happy to get around in one piece,” where as Nigel and Paul L recorded a new Course PB. Paul also said that he was “overly happy with today. A good test of where fitness is at.” Full CARC results:
Nigel Taylor – 01:34:36
Jo Marriott – 01:59:03 – 7th FV55
Paul Lewis – 02:00:12
Carol “Tom” Powell – 02:20:58
Janet Hill – 02:26:33 – 4th FV70
At the relatively “hilly” Welshpool 10k, the first in this year’s Adrenaline Sporting Events 10k Series, it was an emotional win for Eric who had his first race win in front of his 11 week old son (and future Croft runner); Evan. Croft Junior runner; Olivia, also ran, taking part in her first ever 10k race, where she placed 3rd in the F15 age category. Their times:
Eric Apperley – 35:10 – 1st Overall
Olivia Hayman – 52:16 – 3rd F15
We’ll end this week with Mia’s incredible 16 MINUTE MARATHON PB that she recorded on Sunday at the Rome Marathon in Italy. Mia, who has taken a liking to racing marathons abroad, has been training hard for this one, with it all paying off around the streets of Rome and in front of notable landmarks such as the Coliseum and the Vatican City. She would finish in 03:26:05 and in the top 2,000 runners out of nearly 30,000. Incredible!
That’s all we have for this week. If you have been doing something that you would like included in the weekly roundup please let Bronwyn, Huw, Sam H or Tori know before 6pm on a Sunday.
We are always on the lookout for race reports to go on the website too. They do not need to be huge, or even go into too much detail, but let us know where you went and how it went for you together with a couple of photos and make our website current and up to date.
Enjoy your week of running everyone!