Thanks to Jo for sending this week’s report of the ninth Isle of Wight parkrun. In her own words. Ed
What a gorgeous, sunny day for our (hopefully!) last use of the temporary Puckpool Park course.
This alternative site has gained a lot of positive comments and feedback, and is certainly a more interesting and varied course, but it will be nice to be back “home” in the riverside fields of Medina and Seaclose.
With Friday night’s closing ceremony celebrations marking the end of the Natwest Island Games 2011 going on late into the evening, we did not expect a huge turnout at Saturday’s early parkrun! We were right as it was our lowest number yet with just 17 runners taking part, including three first-timers and two unregistered runners.
Unfortunately we have discovered that at least three runners turned up at the Medina course on Saturday. We are so sorry you didn’t see our notices regarding the continued use of Puckpool, and strongly recommend all participants to check this news page a day or two prior to parkrun to keep up to date with alterations and venue changes, or follow us on Facebook for the latest news.
Our coordinator this week was the indomitable – Ray Scovell – still functioning and smiling despite the busiest couple of months Ray has had for years! Our excellent crew this week also included the stalwart Justine Crumplin, who took the most wonderful photo of our junior runners this week, together with Cheryl Frampton and Steve Duff who both took a week off running to help out. Thanks to all the helpers and marshalls at Saturday’s events – we really couldn’t operate without you.
It was another close finish this week, but our overall winner was Michael David Morris (VM40-44), of Serpentine RC, achieving his personal best parkrun time so far of 21:54. This was Michael’s sixth parkrun to date. Only four seconds later to take second place was Paul Littler (VM40-44) in his first ever parkrun, with 21:58. Also achieving a PB today was our third place male Cohan Stephen Tyler (JM15-19) in his third parkrun and with a time of 22:19. Three consecutive PB’s is pretty impressive stuff chaps!
In her 9th consecutive appearance at the Isle of Wight parkrun, it will be no surprise to anyone that our female winner today – for the 6th week running – was young Eden Crumplin (JW14) of the IW Athletics Club, in a time of 23:37. This also made her fifth overall, and a staggering four minutes ahead of her nearest female counterparts, and gave Eden an age graded performance score of 70.43%.
Eden is only 11 years old, and already a parkrun legend! We look forward to seeing her times improve even more back on the flatter Medina course next week. Young Elsie Lewis (JW14) also ran well again and took second place female (and tenth overall) in a time of 27:45, and Jennifer Culshaw (SW30-34) was our third lady in her PB time of 28:59, so very well done ladies.
No veteran parkrunners took part today, but special mention should be made of both Eden Crumplin and Jay Tuck (who was in eighth place today) who are the only runners to have completed every event since we started nine weeks ago, and are both anticipating their first parkrun milestone of 10 runs next Saturday. As a result these two also remain top of the male and female points tables; Eden with 896 points and Jay with 824.
The points table is otherwise altering every week, and now Jay’s father Graham Tuck is in second place on the men’s table with 674 points, and J Lewis is third with 630. Graham is also top of the IOW age graded performance table with 85.21%.
In the ladies table Katie Patricia Lewis is now second with 655 and Shelagh Thornett is now in third place with 645 points.
This week saw four new personal bests, bringing the total since the Medina IW parkrun started to 62. During these eight weeks we have had 117 runners – representing a total of 15 different clubs – running the equivalent of 275 parkruns and a total distance of 1375 kms!
The overall male course record holder is still the unregistered winner of our first ever parkrun on 7th May, in a time of 17:41, and the overall female course record holder is still Claire Kiely, who achieved an impressive 20:56 at the same event. Claire also deserves a mention for performing so well at the Island Games last week. We look forward to seeing her back at parkrun sometime and giving Eden some serious competition!
If the Medina course has to be avoided for any reason next Saturday we will announce the change of venue as soon as we can. Otherwise please assume that it is coming home to Newport with immediate effect.
Don’t forget you can keep up with all the latest news, and join in group discussions, by joining our parkrun page on Facebook, and please remember to bring your bar-codes next week.
Image: © Used with the kind permission of Ray Scovell
