“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving forwards” – Albert Einstein
Good morning lovely Dashers. Well, another week rattles by – can you believe that it’s only a few weeks until Christmas and, more importantly of course, we’ve already ‘dashed’ to week 45 of the parkrun Championships? Time flies and all that but it really doesn’t seem that long since we were kicking this little shindig off. It’s a real privilege for me to look at your achievements each week – and, having taken the opportunity to take a peek back at last year, some of the improvements you have made have been remarkable. I will try and highlight a few of these over the closing weeks.
And this week, you outdid yourselves again. There was the madness of the Halo Headtorch Challenge (I would definitely have ended up faceplanting), some brilliant running by the “2 Sarah’s” at the Remembrance Day 10k in Lytham and a special mention to little Milo Smith (Bradley’s lad) who completed his first ever junior parkrun. Milo is already a Dashers superfan and is seemingly on the way to outdoing his dad!
And we also had a special celebration at parkrun this week. Paul Conlon completed his 200th event which is a brilliant achievement – well done Paul! He hit the milestone at Sale Water and had a massive Dasher turnout to help him celebrate with 14 of you lovely people travelling the M60 to be there – and you made quite the splash so to speak with some amazing results.
Overall we had 23 Dashers at 7 events with 8 first-timers and Top-10 finishes by David Seddon, Jonny Bromilow, Ady Humphries and Diane Dudgeon who were 1st, 2nd, 7th and 5th respectively at the aforementioned Sale Water. The locals must have wondered what hit them! Jonny and Diane also smashed fabulous PB’s to cap a memorable day; a feat matched by Ruth Cunliffe with yet another excellent run and our speed-couple Kerry and Bruce Elliott, who both crushed excellent PB’s at Ormskirk. Well done all.
And, as a result of Bruce’s great run, we now have a new leader in the Men’s Championship! After an exciting chase over the last few weeks, Bruce has now caught and passed long time leader Martin Oldfield – but by only 0.03 of a percentage point which is a ridiculously tiny margin at this level. Brilliant running Bruce over the last few weeks. And Jez Turner is not out of the race yet either. He is only 0.49 further back so a couple of downhill parkruns could yet see Jez challenging for the top spot. I said a few weeks ago this would go down to the wire and it absolutely will! Jonny Bromilow also capped a fine week with a 1-place climb to now move into 6th after recording his best score of the season, which was a marker also posted by Brian Tull. Good work gents.
The Ladies Championship is slightly less dramatic but both Diane Dudgeon and Kerry Elliott closed on leader Linda Coffey this week after their excellent performances. The only forward movement, position wise, was Ash Ransom who continued her excellent start to Dashing with another 2-position climb from 20th to 18th. Great stuff!
We are now very close to the season end with the winners to be crowned at the Christmas Do – if you haven’t got your tickets yet, what are you waiting for? Next week sees the David Staff Memorial Fell Race which I know many of you are racing or marshalling so best wishes for a great event. I’m not aware of any local parkrun cancellations yet so you have a free choice to find a quick one! As ever, have a wonderful week and happy parkrunning!