Well, Crofties, you brought it home. No, not the football. The Team Trophy for the Herefordshire and Borders Summer XC League! Well done! But, more on that later.
A quick blast from the past to begin this week’s report, with a race we missed in last week’s!
On Saturday 20th July, a small Croft group headed up to Snowdonia to take part in the International Snowdon Race. It was wet, cold and miserable, but this didn’t stop Andrew G, Gary P, Patrick, Gary G, Flora, Ireland and Alison D from completing the 9.42 mile race. Full CARC result were:
Andrew George – 01:48:18
Gary Pearson – 01:55:03
Patrick Pearson – 01:58:52
Flora Gunner – 02:04:22 – 3rd in Age Category
Ireland Lawrence – 02:09:01
Gary Gunner – 02:26:04 – 3rd in Age Category
Alison Davies – 02:34:15
Back to this week, and first up this week was our Juniors and their training session at Wigmore. A couple of our Juniors have also been out competing this week. Saffi headed down to Gloucester on Thursday evening to take part in a One Mile Track Event, securing her 6th UK ranking. She finished first in the U13 Girls age category, with a staggering time of 5 minutes and 58 seconds. At the XC League, Oliver was our sole junior in the field. He finished the final Junior race in 19:32, in 2nd place.
Onto our Senior runners, with Tuesday’s training session taking place in and around Croft Wood. Plenty of our runners turned up to join in with the club social run, as well as a farewell picnic for Croftie; Joe, as he takes on a new venture in Scotland. It was a beautiful evening, with a spread full of food for our hungry runners to munch on!
Now, it’s time for some XC chatter, with Croft Ambrey Running Club taking home several awards from this year’s Summer League!
It was all go from the first to last race, with Sam J taking home first place in ALL four races. As for Team Croft, as a whole, we spent some time hot on the heels of Hereford Couriers, snatching first place from them after Race 3. Race 4 saw a large number of Sky Blues take to the field, to help bring home the sought after Team Trophy once again. Our runners have put in some incredible runs over the course of this league, and deserve all the awards that have come home with us. Full Croft awards:
Croft Ambrey Running Club – Team Award
Sam Juson – 1st Overall Male
Jo Marriott – 1st FV55
Liza Austin – 1st FV60
Sue Wood – 3rd FV65
You can read a full report on the 2024 Summer Cross Country Series here.
Full results from all the XC races, including Race 4, can be found here – Ready Set Go Timing.
With many of our runners recovering from the XC on Wednesday evening, only a handful of Crofties headed to Wigmore for Thursday training, where Sprints were on the cards, with Emma at the helm.
Parkrun Saturday saw Crofties taking part in the weekly event at several different locations.
At Ludlow, Stuart was first Croftie home in a time of 25:08. Liza was our first female, with Anna, Ali D and Aleah recording new PBs. Clare P was volunteering. Over in Hereford, Croft came home with a 1-2 finish, with Sam J crossing the finish line just ahead of Scott.
Elsewhere on the Parkrun scene, Naomi ran at Evesham with her son, Henry. They finished in 27:21. Saffi ran at Ross-on-Wye Parkrun, finish 1st in the JW11-14 age category. Finally, Eric took part in Bryn Bach Parkrun saying “Croft on tour. Bryn Bach parkrun the highest parkrun in the UK. Luckily I just missed the rain. Got round in 16.08 and was 1st out of 175 runner’s lovely flat course and as always friendly marshalls.”
One of CARC’s founding members took to Newent Parkrun this weekend, taking part in his FIRST EVER Parkrun event. Tom D sent us this report on his brother, Bryan’s, new achievement. “Now that he has cut back on his farming commitments, Bryan Davies, at the age of 81 and one of the “Croft Founding Five,” completed his first official Parkrun, finishing in a time of 40.28. He described the Newent course as a nice little course, with a mixture of gravel paths, grass and woodland trail, as well as a couple of small climbs thrown in also. Not a PB course, but not too far for anyone wanting a change from our local Parkruns.”
Amazing effort from all!
Choosing a bit more of a challenge compared to the usual Parkrun routes, Lou P headed down to the Brecon Beacons to take on the Tenacious 10 Endurance Challenge – a 10 hour challenge that tests how many 4 miles loops of Table Mountain you can achieve in the given time frame. With the event record standing at 9 loops, Lou managed to complete 6 of these before 10 hours was up. A difficult challenge, but one that Lou said, via Strava, was “bloody brilliant.”
Guy and his grandson ran (and walked) up Skiddaw on Saturday. He said on Facebook: “Croftie on tour. Ran (and walked) up Skiddaw today with grandson, starting in Keswick in drizzle, ending up at the peak in low cloud. Visibility was so poor we thought we’d reached the top, then it cleared enough to see the summit another 5 minutes away. 850m in just under 90 minutes, so 986m with a cut off of 2hrs in September in the Pyrénées should be manageable, though less oxygen, and probably more heat!”
Sunday was quieter when it came to running and racing.
Clare and Heather swapped the running shoes for walking boots, as they walked from Pembridge to Staunton-on-Arrow and back, finishing at everyone’s (Bronwyn’s in particular) favourite corner coffee shop; Bloom and Grind.
A small Croft group also headed to Kington on this fine Sunday morning to run the first leg of the Herefordshire Trail from Kington to Kinsham, also ending their Sunday jaunt around the trails with coffee and cake at Theresa’s house.
Flora has been out and about with her fell running again this week. 1hr17mins 10 seconds at Y Darman Fawr Fell race. She said on facebook ‘It’s only a short distance race and we’re only 19 runners taking part.Great race, good for my training!
Brilliant running this week, Crofties! Please remember that our upcoming training sessions will be available to view on our Facebook page every Sunday evening. In the meantime, 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).