Whoop! Whoop! Medina IW parkrun hits three figures!
We were thrilled to welcome 114 runners to this week’s beautiful and still November parkrun. It was our best turn-out to date – and that figure included 14 first-timers. The conditions were extremely favourable, and it is unsurprising that over a quarter of the runners achieved a personal best!
Veterans dominated the field
With so many AC juniors and teens away at an athletics event, the field was left open to the over-40 “veterans” and what a great run it was.
Winning for the third time out of his 15 appearances at parkrun was Alan Rowe (VM45-49) in 19:28, whilst in very close second place again – after leading for some of the run – was Steve Gratton (VM55-59) with 19:33. In third place and achieving his new parkrun PB, was Nick Kenney (VM40-44) in 19:54.
Julie Murphy first woman
The first female over the line (and 6th overall) was an “overner” in the form of Julie Murphy (VW35-39) of Lagan Valley AC. This was Julie’s first go at the Medina IW parkrun, but her 11th parkrun to date, and she achieved a winning time of 20:27.
Close behind Julie was our very own previous 4-time winner Mary Norman (VW45-49) who maintained her PB streak with a new best time of 20:42 and was 8th overall. Previous winner and fellow club-runner Karen Lewis (VW45-49) was the third lady home (15th overall) in all the twos – 22:22.
Masses of personal bests
With so many PBs being achieved this week, I haven’t got room to mention you all, so I will just say a special well done to young Holly Whitter, who had a lot of encouragement from her photographer Dad and managed to smile for his pictures whilst running her best parkrun to date, and to all the other junior participants who did so well; Mabel, Finlay, Becci, Jacob, Kate, Jack, Brooke, Alexander and Aidee.
Well done to all the runners of any age who were able to go away afterwards with a feeling of satisfaction and well-being so characteristic of parkrun.
Tenth run for Eden Canning
Ray would also like me to mention that young Eden Canning was taking part in her tenth parkrun, but we forgot to announce this at the start and give her the round of applause she deserves!
Parkrun T-shirts are now on their way to us for all the juniors who have done ten parkruns, and should be ready to distribute before the end of the month hopefully.
43rd run for Pat
We also welcomed some “veteran parkrunners”. Jessica Mathur was taking part in her 15th parkrun, but her first IW event, whilst Bromley runner Tony Morton has just done his 22nd parkrun. Tony’s wife Pat was doing her 43rd to date, and was also very encouraging to other runners she encountered during the 5km course – particularly myself and my friend Charlotte Spreadbury.
Congrats to Charlotte, by the way, who achieved her new PB and finished in magnificent style with the encouragement of her husband Paul. Nice running, “Spreaders”!
Eden Crumplin still in first place
Despite the absence of Eden Crumplin this week, her points total of 2,381 was enough to keep her in solid first place on the ladies points table, but young Mabel Lewis – who appeared in third place last week – has now beaten both her Mum Katie and her sister Elsie to achieve second placing with her excellent 1,823 points, after her best ever parkrun!
Elsie (who marshalled this week but has already had the maximum marshalling points for the year) is now third with 1,801. This now means that the top three ladies are all representatives of the IWAC, and Ray’s proteges, and I may have to confiscate that loud hailer if he continues to support them so vociferously!
Men remain the same
Still no change in the positions on the men’s points table.
All three of our board leaders ran today though, so there is a change in points for each; Mike Morris holds first place with 2,191, Jay Tuck (our October “Parkrunner of the Month”) holds second with 2,060 and Kev Fry holds third with 1,858.
Jackie Perrin does it for the ladies
The female course record holder is still Reading Road Runner – Jackie Perrin – with her 19:19 achieved on 22nd October, whilst Eastleigh runner -John Collier – still holds the men’s course record of 16:30 from his run on 1st October.
parkrun stats
Over the course of the past six months the Medina IW parkrun has had 392 different runners, including representatives from 42 different athletics clubs, running the equivalent of 1,601 parkruns and covering a total distance of 8,005km.
If you would like to try and visualise just what this distance looks like, I can tell you that it is the distance from Medina Leisure Centre to Inner Mongolia if that helps!
Thanks to volunteers
Our grateful thanks to all the volunteers who helped with timing, marshalling and scanning duties; to our magnificent Ray Scovell for directing with his usual aplomb and enthusiasm; and to Paul Whitter for being Saturday’s event photographer whilst I opted to run for a change!
Cakes were supplied in great number today by Simon Randall, who celebrated his birthday on the 11th, so many congratulations and thanks to our special birthday-boy and my own lovely husband!
Don’t forget that there will be open cross-country races held after parkrun on Saturday 10th December. The races will be open to any juniors in years 3, 4, 5 or 6, and the first race starts at 11am. Entry forms are available online from Ray, and so please let him know as soon as possible if you would like to enter and he will email one to you. There will be prizes in each age category and the event should be a lot of fun.
Become a volunteer
If you would like to become a parkrun volunteer and help out once in a while, please let Ray know so that he can change your parkrun status to include volunteering – this way you will earn up to 300 points every year by helping occasionally! If you are available to help in any capacity during the remainder of this year, please let Ray know as soon as possible so that he can organise the rotas and give regular helpers a chance to run. If you would like to help at the cross-country event, please tell Ray next Saturday.
Join parkrun
If you are new to running and would like to join us, simply register your details at the Medina IW parkrun homepage, and download your unique barcode.
It costs absolutely zilch, zero and nothing to register and take part (though donations towards the IW parkrun are never turned down!), is enormous fun and totally good for you! Let’s see if we can maintain three figures throughout the rest of this year!
