Happy Sunday to all of our wonderful Crofties and readers from the outside world! It’s time for your first Weekly CARC Update of July!
The week began just as the last ended – hot, hot, hot! Because of this, on safety grounds, we decided to cancel this week’s Junior training. Cancelling sessions are always a last resort here at Croft, but with the Wigmore School field being as open as it is, and temperatures still in the high twenties come 5pm, it was a decision that needed to be taken in order to keep our young Sky Blues safe! Come the end of this week, temps are looking a lot more manageable, so we hope to see our youngsters again this next Monday!
As for our Seniors, it was training as usual. Tuesday’s session would kick July off in style with a Long Interval session with Emma on Bircher Common. This was followed by a Hill session on Thursday, with Huw, around our name sake; Croft Ambrey! He put on our Facebook page: “An elite group of Crofties embraced a hill session up on the Ambrey this evening. Photos are all untouched and filter free – they really are that good looking!”
Wednesday evening would prove to be a mid-week busy one!
Courtesy of Hereford Couriers Running Club, we were invited to take part in their track session, which a couple of Croft members did. They train on the track every 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month so, if any more Crofties would like to tag along, those are your days to!
If you’ve seen some of our posts on Facebook, you’ll know that CARC Junior; Liv, has been busy raising money for charity and Wednesday evening was the moment she has been busy training for – running a 17 mile run, with the help of Coach Eric by her side! Not only was this her longest run ever, but she managed to complete it in less than 3 hours, in what is an undulating route with warm summer temps, while raising way over £1,000 in donations. An absolute incredible achievement for a wonderful up and coming young runner! All at Croft are proud of you, Liv. Well done!
Liv wasn’t the only Croft Junior running on Wednesday evening, with Saffi running track in Gloucester. She ran a new PB for the track mile, in 5:46 and picked up her 17th UK ranking.
Parkrun Saturday, and Croft runners were here, there and everywhere. Fifteen plus Crofties took to the trails of Ludlow, with Steve crossing the line in 6th and finishing first Croft runner home. Croft Juniors; Seb, Oliver and Caspar joined him in the Top 11. Ireland was our first female home and 3rd female overall. Elsewhere, Sam J ran at Merthyr Tydfil, finishing in 1st, with a time of 16:15. Huw ran at Wyre Forest (and mislaid his finish token so isn’t on the results list!). Down at a very wet and very winder Porthcawl Parkrun, Eric finished 2nd and Bronwyn came home in the Top 10 females. “We’ve been back out on the parkrun road again this morning. This time it was down to a very wet and a very windy Porthcawl. It was a nice little out and back route along the promenade, just made a little harder by the headwind! Eric finished 2nd and I, somehow, managed to finish 9th female even after my little break from running!”
Also on Saturday, Joe L and Flora took part in the Fan y Big Pen y Fan y Big Fell Race in the Breacon Beacons. This is a 18.9 mile race, with an ascent of 6017ft. Both Joe and Flora stuck together throughout the race, finishing in 05:13:46. Flora also won 1st FV60. Croft Junior; Saffi, was also running the Junior fell race. She finished in 25:37 and was 1st in age.
Down in the French Alps, Tim J attempted the La Montagn’Hard 100km. This race is 100km across extremely mountainous Alpine terrain, with a cut off time of 30 hours. Unfortunately for Tim, with the current extreme Southern European temperatures, he couldn’t maintain the required pace and missed the cut off at 50km. A real shame for this Croftie, but a valiant effort, regardless!
A bit closer to home, on Sunday morning, was Hereford Couriers Summer Sizzler 10k. 3 Croft runners; Jo T, Nicola and Frank, took part in this race, and all finished by just over the hour. Jo would come home 2nd in her age category, Nicola, 5th in hers, and Frank 3rd in his. Frank said: “Following some ‘will we, won’t we’ Nic and I decided to give the Hereford Couriers ‘Summer Sizzler’ 10k road race a go, following on from the Christmas 10k we ran the same route but the ‘loop’ was clockwise instead of anti clockwise. 6.25 miles in all, what surprised me was the number of competitors , 394 at Christmas compared to just 54 this morning!!, Just a few minutes after Nic and I had arrived at the Rugby club we met Jo T. Which made 3 Crofties. 10am we set off with such a small entry very quickly spreading out, from where I was Jo dissapeared out of sight as soon as we started and Nic had run off into the distance and out of sight within the first mile, meanwhile I plugged on still aiming for that elusive sub 60 minute 10k, I ran with Wye Valleys’ John Mould duelling ‘wheel to wheel’ for almost the entire route until the last half mile, being downhill I managed to outpace John and finish just 8 seconds ahead, it wasn’t untill I read the results that I found he is a vet75, so well ran John. In dry and cooler conditions, we all felt it was a good run and worth taking part, maybe more runners can be attracted to next years edition.” Full Croft results:
Jo Tilby – 50:04 – 2nd FV40
Nicola Luscott – 58:14 – 5th SF
Frank Luscott – 01:04:22 – 3rd MV65
Wrapping up the weekend was the Porthcawl 10k and Junior Races in Porthcawl, South Wales. In comparison to Saturday, Sunday was much brighter, although the wind was still blowing! Eric ran the 10k race, finished in 15th position overall, with a time of 33:25. Saf was running in the Junior races. She ran the Future Challengers 1 mile and finished 4th in her age category. She then ran the 1 mile fun run and was 1st overall.
Well done all for another fantastic week. The upcoming training schedule will be live on our Facebook on Monday morning. 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).