It’s time for the weekly roundup of news, but apologies in advance. Bron is taking a well deserved break for the week so this is likely to be a bit briefer than the usual update!
Tuesday nights training session was long intervals with Kelly at Shobdon Orchards and Thursday was 400m intervals with Tim on Bircher Common.
Wednesday evening saw the final event of the Herefordshire and Borders summer off road league – this time at Newton Farm, hosted by Hereford Couriers. Croft were the winning team on the night, led home by first place finsher Sam Juson, Mark L was second across the line and Gareth 5th. The first three Croft ladies home completing the team were Kath, Irina and Jo T completing the team to finish 5 mins ahead of second team Monross Trailblazer. However, the Trailblazers went in with a good lead and the gap was just too wide for Croft to take first place in the team event and we finished a very respectable second place behind them.
There were a few Croft Medal winners to celebrate – runners had to run in every race to qualify. Mark Lamonby was the overall and MV35 winner. Kath Hardwick was 1st
Saturday is Parkrun day and a few Croft Runners took part in Ludlow parkrun this week. Jamie was the first Croftie across the line in 28.33 with Rob, Gary, Tim, Huw and Reachel – who took a bit of a tumble at the end – I hope you are ok Reachel! Oli, Guy, Sue F and Tom were volunteering – huge thanks to them, without volunteers every week parkrun couldn’t take place so please think about helping out if you can.
Sam Juson finished in second place at Hereford parkrun in a time of 16.41
Eric and Bronwyn are continuing their park run tourism trail, this week in Pontefract. Eric was first runner home in 17.20 and Bronwyn 26.52. Angus was also on an away day and took part in Seaford Bridge parkrun on the south coast – pushing a pram he finished in 30.04.
Flora was out doing what she does best on Saturday morning – taking part in the Y Domen Fawr fell race, 5.62 miles with 1319 total ascent. Magnificent as ever she was first in her age category in a time of 1.10.59, second female overall.
Jim Bowers did something a little different – in a team with his brother Owen, he took part in the Wales SwimRun Sprint distance involving 5km of sea swimming and 15km running broken up into four sections in each. Extra challenging as they had to stay within 10m of each other at all times and were tethered together for the swims. They were just three minutes behind the leading team in 3hrs 45mins to take second team place.
Kath made a last minute decision on Saturday to run the 28mile Railway Ultra in Coalport. Like the amazing runner she is she finished third lady in 4hrs 22.20.
Tom and Saffi took part in the Purslow Show Hill run yesterday – Tom, amazing as ever, had an injury to his arm on the way round but still managed to complete the race. Saffi was first U16 home and second female.
Saffi has had another busy week running in 800m and 600m events and is now ranked 15th in the UK in the U15 600m and 10th in her age for the road mile. Today saw her running in the 5k and the junior 2k at Dolwen Field. She was first female in the 5k and junior winner in the 2k.
It was a weekend for long distances with Kelly taking part in the Beacons way 100km on Saturday. This is a challenging ultra, taking in many of the peaks of the Brecon Beacons including Pen y Fan. What a fantastic runner she is, finishing in 5th place overall in a time of 17.52.51.
Over to the lakes for the Lakeland 50 and 100 for Janet and Emma. Awe inspiring running from both. Janet finished the 50 in 15.45 and Emma the 100 in 38.05.
That’s all for this week – looks like we should have a few runners taking it easy after a busy week, but if I know Croft runners, they’ll soon be back for more!
Whatever you run this week – make sure you enjoy it!