Welcome to your weekly CARC update, detailing what our club members have been up to this week.
Training on Tuesday meant it was a Halloween special with a sprint session over in Brampton Bryan. The session was supposedly that “eerie-sistable” that even Batman, himself, made an appearance. After a last minute change of location, Thursday’s session was held by Tim, with a social run around High Vinnalls. Luckily for us Crofties, Storm Ciarán dodged us meaning training could continue as usual. Despite the forecast weather, Tim had a good sized group for running with.
With many Crofties away at the Club Training Camp this weekend, our usual Ludlow Parkrun group was a little bit smaller. However, despite the rain coming down hard, it didn’t stop our Sky Blues from turning up to celebrate the 150th Parkrun of club legend; Bryan Markham. Two Crofties finished in the top five with Sam J and Grant finishing in 2nd and 4th, respectively. Congratulations on 150 Parkruns, Bryan. You are an inspiration to all of us. Elsewhere, Joe L and Steph K were Parkrun tourists, running at Rothay Park and Shepton Mallet.
Our fell runners were out and about again on Saturday racing the Winter Sugar Loaf Race in Abergavenny. At the time of writing, results were still provisional. A fantastic effort by all three saw Tim finish in 1:03:53, Flora in 1:12:53 and Gary in 1:17:01. Flora was also first in her age category!
Also this week, Louise P and Mark L were over in the States. Lou was in New York ready to run the New York Marathon which took place today. Results are yet to be published, at the time of writing but we’re sure she smashed it! Mark, also on the East Coast but down in Florida, took part in the Ironman Florida. It was a difficult day for Mark who put on Facebook: “Was going well, then cramp set in hard and as much as I wanted to hold onto position, there was nothing I could do. Need to add salt tablets to my races – a harsh lesson learnt today.”
As mentioned above, a lot of our runners were at the Club Training Camp this weekend. After a successful inaugural weekend in 2022, many of our runners were eager to see the camp go ahead for a second year running. Pun not intended. Nearly 30 runners turned up to the activity centre in Dol-y-Gaer, Wales, where they partook in several activities including a fasted run, navigational run and a long run. And, although they were the victims of some very wet and cold weather, it seems as if they all enjoyed themselves!
So, that’s another week over with. We look forward to what the next week will bring. 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).