Thanks to Jo for sending through the latest parkrun report. It’s great to see the weekely event going from strength to strength. Ed
Although the words “heatwave” and “October” don’t very often get used in the same sentence, our 22nd Medina IW parkrun took place in what can only be described as a heatwave in October! It was our best ever turn out of runners and one of the hottest, sunniest runs to date, and was a very fitting environment to witness a new course record!
We were delighted to welcome a prestigious line-up of 87 runners (plus some one-lappers) to parkrun this week, 10 of whom were parkrun first-timers, and one of whom was a previous IW winner and course record holder at another event!
Grateful to volunteers
We were also grateful to have some pace-setters on the course, to guide and motivate runners aiming for a specific time.
These runners – who donned tabbards and put their own competitiveness to one side for the day to help others – were Steve Duff, Cheryl Frampton, Glyn Jenkins, Ian Jolliffe and Simon Randall, and we would like to thank them all for their fantastic efforts. Thanks also to all the volunteers who helped at Saturday’s event, to our lovely Race Director, Ray Scovell, for his endless support and encouragement, and to the providers of cakes and sweets at the finishing line!
Regular runner and helper – Chris Amy – shared out a huge tub of sweets, whilst the Lewis family contributed platefuls of homemade cakes in celebration of young Mabel’s forthcoming birthday. A very happy birthday is wished to this wonderful young lady on behalf of all of us who know her.
New course record
Without further ado I simply must tell you that the new Medina IW course record of 16:30 was set today by the very smiley John Collier (SM20-24) of the Westbury Harriers. John is the reigning Eastleigh course record holder, has run in 29 events to date and this was his second win at our event.
Sadly, this was to be John’s last run on the Island for the foreseeable future, but this extremely pleasant young man has left an excellent challenge for our own local runners, and we hope his travels bring him back to us one day.
Close timings
Our second place man, running excellently and achieving his new PB, was Andrew McEwen (VM50-54) of the West Wight Road Runners in a time of 19:02, with Will Ambrosini (VW40-44) of the Ryde Harriers close behind to get third place in 19:14.
Our leading female, for the first time in her three parkruns to date, was Mary Norman (VW45-49) of the Ryde Harriers, and Mary was also 11th overall with her time of 21:23. Our second lady home was previous 11-time winner and latest Parkrunner-of-the-Month; 12 year old Eden Crumplin (JW14) of the IW AC in 23:03.
This was Eden’s 20th IW parkrun so far, and she remains the runner who has completed the most parkruns since we started in May. In third place was first-timer Lucy Wells (VW40-44) with a great initial time of 23:37. I hope we see Lucy again after this good introductory run.
26 new personal bests
Whether it was thanks to the weather or to the pace-setters, we saw a tremendous 26 PBs! I simply can’t mention you all by name, but special congrats to Elsie Lewis (it is a rare week when none of the Lewis family achieves a PB!) for her efforts, and to Dad – Simon – for encouraging her so much. Mum – Katie – also got a new PB, so those cakes at the end were even more deserved!
Also a big well done to Margaret Niland-Murphy, for her PB. Margaret gave parkrun a try last month, liked it so much she has been back three times and even brought her husband with her! Such is the pull and spirit of parkrun. It would seem that 50% of the PBs were achieved by junior runners, and I am delighted to say that five year old Simon Apsey was back running the course, and was one of these!
Over 2,000 points for Eden
After her performance , Eden Crumplin has the distinction of being the first IW parkrunner to reach 2,000 points in the table with her impressive score of 2,086, whilst Elsie and Katie Lewis still hold second and third places with 1,506 and 1,450 points respectively.
In the men’s points table, Michael David Morris is still leading with 1,805 points, with Jay Tuck still holding on to second place with 1,732. Junior runner, Jacob Lewis, has suddenly jumped into third place with 1,484 points after his marshalling, so the Lewis family are having an extremely good week!
Graham Tuck (VM60-64) ran again, and earned the highest age-graded performance score of 80.37%. Graham also remains top of the overall table with his excellent score of 85.21% on 14th May. Our winner – John Collier – achieved the second highest age score with 78.18% – which puts him joint 6th overall on the age graded performance table, together with Saturday’s winning female – Mary Norman – who was also rated 78.18%.
Since the Isle of Wight parkrun started we have had 297 different runners, representing 37 different athletics or running clubs, running the equivalent of 1,053 parkruns and covering a total distance of 5,265kms. You may be amazed to know that 5,265kms is also the exact length of the Amazon river! Don’t say I don’t put effort into these reports!
Carla still reigning
Our overall female course record holder is still Carla Plowden-Roberts for her time of 20:46 achieved on 27th August, whilst John Collier set the course alight with his record run in 16:30. We look forward to Will Newnham’s return to parkrun to challenge this usurping by a non-Islander – despite how nice John is!
To help with any future events, or to order a Santa suit for the Christmas Eve parkrun, please contact Ray as soon as possible. If you feel inspired to run parkrun, simply download your unique bar-code from the website and bring it with you the next time to take part. It is free, fun and good for you, so come and join us next week!
