From the many members training for a spring marathon, only one actually raced this weekend, but not in the Bath Half which does usually attract some club runners.
Men’s captain Aaron Willis this year went to Woking for the Surrey Half Marathon on Sunday 16th. After clocking an impressive 89 miles the week before, you could perhaps argue that he was tapering a bit for the race, clocking “only” 69 miles this week, albeit more than most of us could handle.
After a first 5k at around 2:37 marathon pace, Aaron pushed on for the majority of the race, but had to slow slightly over the last few miles into a headwind, with the high training mileage also being felt. His performance was good enough, as he had hoped, for a PB (77.54), taking 34 seconds off his time at Stroud last Autumn, and hopefully providing a boost to his preparations for the full marathon, and a base to improve from further when fresh.
1 Samuel Gebreselassie (Belgrave Harriers) 1.05.40 (chip 1.05.39)
62 Aaron Willis (Cirencester AC) 1.17.59 (1.17.54)
1789 finished
15 March 2025, parkruns
Parkrun performance of the weekend was by recent teen member Ben Clarke (15), who not only won at Eastleigh in 18.21, but was around 90 seconds ahead of not only the second placed runner there, but also his own parkrun PB, an amazing improvement over his run in Cirencester last month. Congratulations, Ben!
It’s not often we have three foreign parkrunners, [Ok Wales is pehaps pushing it ;-)] but Paul Timms managed to fit one in on his stopover in Pretoria, whilst Steve Hale continued his Antipodean tour with a run in an uncomfortably hot Geelong (34C by the afternoon). His last Australian parkrun planned for next week may be even hotter.
Ian Barrett cycled to and from the Tetbury parkrun on the alternative course only to find (unusually) that he was the only club runner.
At Cirencester, in the best conditions for a while, Otis Forbes and Amanda Naylor both set PB’s, whilst Rob Tuttle wasn’t far off his.
Kate Kilby was again way out in front on an age graded basis. Phil Davey volunteered for tail walking (before a very long training run on Sunday)
Cirencester: 22 Otis Forbes (J) 22.12, 24 Ian Moore 22.21, 49 Rob Tuttle 24.23,51 Kate Kilby 24.25, 59 Neil Broadley 25.09, 94 Gordon Jones 27.38, 117 Amanda Naylor 28.39,130 Kirsty Leggate 29.24, 227 Phil Davey 52.29, 227 finished.Tetbury: 5 Ian Barrett 20.55, 140 finished.Chippenham: 194 James Hunton 31.26, 278 finished.Melksham: 32 David Moss 23.53, 176 finished.Ashton Court, Bristol: 55 Martin Croucher 22.51, 466 finished.Berkeley Green: 90 Ruth Fulford 33.35, 105 finished.Eastleigh: 1 Benjamin Clarke (J) 18.21, 169 finished.Sharpham Estate, Totnes: 12 Ben Hilditch 23.20, 75 finished.Y Promenad, Aberhonddu, Brecon, Wales: 71 Richard Edwards 28.24, 148 finished.Lanseria, Pretoria, South Africa: 9 Paul Timms 26.25, 62 finished.Balyang Sanctuary, Geelong, Melbourne, Australia: 102 Stephen Hale 25.24, 327 finished.
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