Week 1

Half Marathons seemed to be popular this weekend. Congratulations to Sam on bagging a 1.29.07 PB in the Belvoir HM, Dave P on his 1.26.59 in Prague, John D 1.45.23 and Charlotte 2.18.38 (a big PB) in the London Landmarks. It was a big weekend for Blake too. Neither of his previous Marathons did justice to the runner we know he can be, but on Sunday things finally fell into place with a massive 3.55.36 PB in the Brighton Marathon.

We had parkrunners all over the place on Saturday. There was a club trip to the new Beacon Hill event with the added bonus of seeing former Hoggs James and Rachel (not to mention Harry on first timers’ briefing). Congratulations to David W on his 200th and Martin Cr on his 50th. Top tourists were Gurmit, Randeep, Ashveer and Gurtej who hit Torun (Poland), where Gurmit was competing in the World Masters Indoor Championships. Sadly, he wasn’t in contention for the medals but he achieved creditable times of 4.29.53 in the 1500m and 9.50.59 in the 3000m.

Week 2

I’ll start the round-up with a result I missed last week; Hilary Buckley also did the London Landmarks HM, recording an impressive time of 2.06.53 (Gold County Standard). Friday seemed to be the day for Easter weekend racing. Brian completed his 10th Folkstone 10, in 2.10.53. David 1.35.51 and Kathryn 1.38.10 were also in action in the Victoria Park HM, with Kathryn finishing 1st V50.

This week’s parkrun landmark was Lee reaching 150, which he marked with a trip to beautiful Rosliston.

Week 3

Plenty of action to report on this week. This week’s Marathon was Manchester (unless you were in Boston (Lincs or USA). Charly was first back in 4.12.53, Hilary Buckley did a tremendous 4.57.11 (Silver Standard) and Brian 6.26.45. Nearer to home, it was the Big (Abbey Park) 10k. Mike led the team with 42.54, Leah (44.13) showed her form by lowering her PB for the second time this year and Anna (47.15) took more than a minute off hers (a testament to her hard work and the guiding hand of coach Sam). Terry kicked off his racing year with 48.07, Mark Richards did 50.49 and Baz made a comeback from long-term injury in 56.21. Mary made her 10k debut in 1.06.15, Minisha (1.13.52) got a big PB and Sarah Richards (1.15.17) got both a PB and a fourth County Standard.

There was also a splash of burgundy in the 3000m at the Charnwood Open meeting yesterday. Rambo did 11.00.58 and Sam 11.06.04 (4th and 5th respectively in the B race). Track star Gurmit got a 9.41.01 PB and Dave P 10.45.48 in the A race.

This week’s PB star at parkrun was Gary and recent parkrun convert Blake hit his 25 milestone.

Week 4

In last week’s round up I missed Matt Langtree’s great run in the Peak District Birthday Bash. He did the 35km version (including 1300m of vert) finishing 7th and first vet. This week’s extreme achievement comes from our Aussie branch (Fiona) who did the 100km Alpine Challenge (3700m of vert), finishing 5th overall.

The main event, of course, was the London Marathon. Some people like to keep quiet about their Marathons, so it’s a bit of an annual game to work out who’s doing it. The results that I’m aware of are:
Kathryn Evans 3.19.25 (Diamond Standard)
Mike Cummins 3.27.08 (a PB and the completion of his Silver Standard)
Max Barratt 3.29.25 ( a debut Marathon, paced like a pro)
John Drake 3.48.05 (carrying the club place with distinction)
Sophie Smith 4.17.49 (an excellent debut)
Harry Short 4.47.34 (battled to complete his “London uberparkrun”)
Sandra Ritchie 5.49.20 (a PB in the Virtual Event)
Komal Parmar 6.01.29 (a typically gutsy finish after the wheels came off at halfway).

At the other end of the distance scale, Dave P (18.46) finished 10th overall in the county 5k champs at Mallory and banked another Diamond Standard.

We also had a posse of Hoggs do the Wolf run: Martin Cr, Lee, Cath, Chris, Grace and Nigel.

Week 5

It seemed like there was a distinct lack of happy Hoggs in Milton Keynes yesterday. David (3.52.32) and Marcus (4.53.57) took on the Marathon and both were unimpressed by their performances; David suffering an injury at mile 15 and Marcus regretting a last-minute decision to enter. The biggest drama was Kathryn’s, however. She took a bad fall in the HM and had to be patched up at mile 9. Needless to say she finished (in 1.44.27, a time others would kill for) looking like a victim in a slasher movie and had to take another trip to the medical tent.

Parkrun highlight of the week was probably our correspondent, Mat, going under 30 minutes for the first time in over a year.