We hope everyone had a lovely Easter, the weather may have been a bit of a changeling over the last week but one thing that is consistant is our members enthusiasm for running and, possibly fuelled by Easter Egg Chocolate, our runners have had a busy week.
There was a break on Monday for the juniors due to the bank holiday, but training will be back on Monday at Wigmore School with the track now marked out it should be a good one!
Senior training this week saw Sam H leading a group at Shobdon Wood – there was a hint of the splendor to come with the bluebells just beginning to come into flower along the group run up to the forest tracks where some short sprint intervals focussing on form saw everyone putting in some hard work to increase their short term speed.
Thursday evening training was led by Huw – into Croft Woods for some long intervals with Huw.
We all know that Saturdays should be renamed as Parkrun day and this Saturday was no exeption for Croft runners with a total of 23 runners taking part at six different parkruns!
13 runners took part at Ludlow parkrun – with a top 10 finish for Casper in 7th place in 22.45. Jamie, Paul L and Rob took on volunteer roles and still ran as with Guy and Tim WH marshalling. Tim was also able to providing some photos
Huw ran with Mike Hayward at Wyre Forest Parkrun, both recording 31.22 times and Jayne finishing in 44.57. Angus is recovering well from his heart bypass operation and went along with Diane and Anna Bromley to hand out leaflets promoting the Hustle
Mike Bending took on Queenswood with a time of 26.16.
Liza put in a cracking effort at Arrow Valley parkrun in Reddich – a parkrun PB for her in 23.39.
Eric was first across the line at Groe parkrun in a time of 16.49. Sam J was also first across the line at his chosen parkrun of Llanfoist Crossing. At 15.59 he became the course record holder.
Flora had another busy weekend with double whammy of fell races. Saturday saw her running at Crybyn in a 5.47 miles and 3058 feet race – finishing in a time of 1.39.16 and first in her age category. Not one to rest after such a tough race, Sunday morning saw her at Llangollen, this time 11.4 miles and 2851 ft – on a slighly altered course from last year to give an extra 2 hills to run up! I am sure this didn’t worry Flora who finished in 2.28.12, this time finishing second in her age category.
Sunday morning saw a few Crofties at different events.
Martin Rouse and Paul Lewis travelled to Tewkesbury to take part in the Half Marathon. Martin finished in a PB time of 1.52.59, (I’m not sure who his mate is but it looks like they both had a cracking time!) and Paul finished in 1.54.39
Kelly was running in the Boston Marathon in Lincolnshire and told us ‘A flat course on exposed roads. Although the conditions were dry, the relentless wind made it a tough race, constantly working against me and slowing my pace. It was far from a marathon PB, but I dug in, finished strong, and came away with a solid time of 3:49:21. Well done Kelly!
Mike, Steph and Gary headed over to Monmouth for the Kymin dash. A seven mile race straight up to the top of the Kymin before a downhill loop through the Wye Valley to finish back in Monmouth. Gary won his age group in a time of 1.12.44. Steph finished in 1.07.12 – fourth in her age category and Mike in 1.00.09 third in his age.
Over in Switzerland Lucy smashed the Zurich 10k in a new PB time of 39:10. Lucy finished as the 24th placed woman out of nearly 3,000 female runners! Go Lucy!
So another busy week for Croft runners. With the Easter break now over, training will be back to normal for the juniors and the seniors – members be sure to check the newsletter for times and venues.
If you are doing something exciting which you would like shared in the weekly roundup, be sure to send it in to Bronwyn, Huw, Sam H or Tori before 6pm on Sunday.
Happy runninng everyone!