“Rich people have designer tags on their clothes; happy people have dog hairs” – Anon
Good morning lovely Dashers. Firstly, my apologies for the slightly delayed report this week. Life got unexpectedly in the way (who knew I had a life?) and so I wasn’t able to give your stunning efforts the priority they deserve, sadly. Nevertheless, we are back on track now so I hope that you have had a great week. It’s been quite the event with The Traitors Final and a Budget to focus on/endure/ignore as you see fit (what’s everyone going to spend their £100 fuel rebate on? I’m thinking of putting mine towards the £300 the bill has gone up!) Yesterday was also the NYC Marathon which a friend of mine ran and which looked another incredible event. The winners of these things are other-worldly but it’s the guys who finish in the dark but persevere through who are the real heroes to me.
Of course, the highlight of the week, as always, has been your top Dashing performances and you never let us down. This week saw the Race to the Top (which looks brutal) and the pendle Witches 10k and Half. We got our usual excellent turnout and of course some amazing results so huge congratulations to everyone who represented this week.
And despite the other events taking place, 18 intrepid Dashers made it to 10 different parkrun courses this week, 5 doing so for the first time. You were all amazing with another 3 Top-10 finishes recorded by Jonny Bromilow (10th at Grizedale Forest), David Seddon (another brilliant run to be 2nd at Preston) and Diane Dudgeon, who was an excellent 3rd at Centre Vale.
David also racked up yet another PB, and was joined on the “PB-podium” by Elaine Turner (at Alexandra, Moss Side), Ady Humphries (also at Preston) and Ruth Cunliffe, who destroyed her best time at Ormskirk – and sorry I didn’t see you there Ruth, but you were a speedy blur in the distance from me!
Emma Brodrick achieved her 4th qualifying parkrun milestone this week in the Ladies Championship and Kerry Elliott continued her excellent form to close the gap slightly on league leaders Linda Coffey and Diane Dudgeon. Cathy Hatch had a good week, moved up a spot from 15th to 14th in the table.
The real action took place in the Men’s Championship. Both Bruce Elliott and Jez Turner are having storming ends to the season and they recorded their best performance scores of a very strong season this week, which is remarkable. This means that Bruce is now only 0.06 of a percentage point behind leader Martin Oldfield (representing literally a few seconds) and Jez is only 0.37 of a point further back! WOW – this is an incredible finish to the season and it’s impossible to know in what order these amazing athletes will finish.
I’m absolutely privileged to be able to record and report on these results each week – you are doing the Club proud, gents.
For the rest of us mere mortals, parkrun continues apace as well next week although both Witton and Clitheroe Castle are cancelled. The parkrun website is also starting to list those events planning to host Christmas Day and New Years Day events so keep an eye out for those if you need to spend an hour away from the family over the festive period…..not that I would suggest such a thing!
Regardless, keep well, keep your pets safe on bonfire night and, as always, happy parkrunning!