Weekly Roundup, April 16th – April 22nd
Hospice of the Valleys Six Mile Road Race
The annual Hospice of the Valleys race took place today and thanks to so many at the club we had a unbelievable turnout from the Green Army. With team members at other races we still had one of the biggest team photos ever!
The race raised £1,000s for the Hospice and a number of club members helped make it run smoothly including all the marshalls (you all know who you are) plus Richard Sheehy, Clive Cooksey and Brian Phillips who helped set up the course and attended pre-planning meetings in the lead up to the race. Thanks also to all the local clubs that supported the race including Aberdare, Merthyr, Pontypool, Islwyn, Pontypridd, Chepstow and more.
C25Kers
From Lesley O’Connell:-
2 years ago Lee Aherne had the idea to run C25K it was such a success that a sub branch of Parc Bryn Bach Running Club was formed called First Strides, today myself, Cath, Lisa and Ros ran our first race in our Parc Bryn vests…..what a journey! A little pic at the finish with Mr First Strides aka Clive Cooksey who has run us up that golf course hill many times.
Feedback
“Parc Bryn Bach 6 mile race this morning, another great local race. Well organised, supported and marshalled. Well done everyone that ran today.” – Carl Walsh
Vests on Tour
Julie Cashell and Sharon Woods have been continuing their training in Tenerife and dug out the vests for a swim and run.
parkrun
There were 6 PBs to report this week with Nick Osman finishing in 21:26, Marcus Smith in 23:08, Claire Sullivan in 23:45, Cerys-Scarlett Swift in 24:19, Anna Smith in 26:20 and Harry Jackson in 28:38.
Tourists
8 club members braved the traffic of the opening of Trago Mills to help Merthyr parkrun celebrate it’s first birthday. Andrew Gunter took first place and Calvin Thomas took 3rd. Thanks to Gary Bartram for taking the photos.
Elsewhere, Stephen Williams and Dave Kempton were in Newport, Sam Jones and Ian Line were in Penallta (with Sam coming 1st!) and Tony Lewis was at the birthplace of parkrun – Bushy Park.
London Marathon
There were lots of pre-race shots being posted from the London Marathon expo and word must have gotten around as Joe Wicks and Iwan Thomas were keen to get photographs with some of the Green Army athletes.
Congratulations
Well done to all club members who were out there in the heat today, it was far from ideal. It’s best not to publish times as they won’t reflect the hard work put into the big day. Simon Lewis was the first home from the club and to quote him:
“Massive congratulations to anyone who finished the London marathon today, or attempted to finish it. In my opinion it was Hell on earth.”
Our Support Crew
If you’re unable to run the race you may as well make the most of the sunshine!
Cribyn Fell Race
Kevin Hale was a lone Green Vest out in the Brecon Beacons for the extremely tough Cribyn Fell Race. The 5.5 mile race featured a whopping 3,100ft of ascent! (Thanks to Stews Welsh Pics for the photographs)
Welsh Track League 1
Another week, another pioneering group of club members venturing into new territory. This time we had some Green Army members travelling to Cardiff for the Welsh Track League.
Beer Ultra, Buxton
The fourth Beer Ultra (and my second) took place in Buxton, Derbyshire this weekend, and due to health issues it was doubtful whether I’d be able to run it. On the day before I was in no fit state to run but on the day I thought I’d give it a go and see how far I’d get. Out of the 10 loops I managed just 3 🙁 A combination of the Crohn’s playing up (and unscheduled stops en route), a lack of running for the last 3 weeks, toasty conditions and some really tough terrain meant it wasn’t going to end well. At least I went prepared and took the camera to shoot the runners as they were getting increasingly drunk.
Still, it was incredibly scenic out there…
And hilly…
Although the ultra steep climbs were proving troublesome later in the race.
And by the end some had decided to strip down to their undies…
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