Welcome to your FINAL Sunday of May 2026! It’s mad to believe that we are almost half-way through this year, and there’s still so, so much more to come! But first, let’s catch up with all of this week’s shenangians!
Another Bank Holiday Monday meant no Junior Training this week. The same can’t be said for our Seniors who headed out in the blistering May heatwave for their sessions on Tuesday and Thursday.
After much deliberation, the Committee decided to go ahead with Tuesday’s session at Croft despite the 30 degree heat! This gave Coach Tim the opportunity to teach runners all about running in the heat and what adjustments they can make to stay safe in the sun, alongside his scheduled hill session. Adjustments included:
- Training in the shade
- Keeping intesity low with longer recoveries
- Focusing on form and technique, rather than speed and endurance
- Using water and electrolytes to cool down and hydrate
After the session, Mark P headed over to our Members Facebook Page to post this graphic.
Onto Thursday’s session, and it was slightly cooler for Emma’s Sprints at Wigmore School. Plenty of Croft members turned up and we hope they took the previous heat adjustment session into consideration when sprinting around the track!
Jumping back to Tuesday and Flora was out felling in the Mynydd Troed Fell Race in Talgarth. This race, according to Flora’s watch, was 2.74 miles with 978 total ascent. She finished in 39:33 and 2nd in her age category.
Come Saturday, (yes, I’m still going to mention the weather), temperatures had dropped to the early twenties, much more comfortable for tackling Parkruns near and far. It was Eric who finished 1st at Ludlow Parkrun, with over 2 minutes in hand ahead of 2nd place. Eric’s time was 17:25. Simon also finished in the Top 10. Cat was not only our 1st female this week, but 1st female overall. Her time was 24:04, a new PB. Sam H, 2nd female overall, was just behind Cat in 24:35. Volunteers this week went to Jamie, Rob M, Clare (and Baby Evan), Seb and Paul. Over in Hereford, Rob W and Sue W ran. Up to Queenswood and it was another Croft win with Mark finishing in 18:22 – 1 minute ahead of 2nd. 5 other Crofties also took part, with Peter H and Sue F setting new PBs in 32:24 and 53:33 respectively. Sue was also volunteering as a Parkwalker, while Sam J took on a range of roles including Run Director. Plenty of Sky Blue Parkrun Tourism as well this week. Liza headed back to Arrow Valley Parkrun in Redditch, while Naomi and Henry ran at Groe Parkrun in Builth. Adrian and Karen headed to the Cotswolds to take part in Chipping Norton School Parkrun. Karen said: “Lovely Parkrun in the Cotswolds while on holiday with the family celebrating Mum’s 80th. Interesting route and great facilities. Definitely recommend.”
Our Fell runners were not taking it easy this weekend! Flora and Matthew took part in the Welsh 1000m Peak Race taking part in Eryri. Matthew took part in the ‘long’ version – 19.9 miles and 9416 feet total ascent – finishing in 7 hours and Flora finshed second in her age category in 3hrs 3mins 40s in the ‘short’ version – 7.84 miles and 4925 feet total ascent.
Last Sunday Emma took part in the Skye Trial Ultra and she has written a fantastic race report all about it. Keep an eye on the website, it will be available for everyone to read soon!
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!