Fairlands Valley Spartans
Gold, silvers, bronzes and five new personal bests were among the rewards for the 34 Fairlands Valley Spartans who ran Sunday’s Standalone 10K in Letchworth.
Spartan SIMON JACKSON was the fastest from FVS. He was the quickest man 40 plus, won GOLD in the County veteran championships and was 14th overall out of 1294 finishers in 35 minutes 20 seconds. Suzy won silver as SUZY HAWKINS was second woman 45 plus in 43:06 and CLAIRE PULLEN took bronze in the same category with 49:11.
There were two bronze teams – Simon; ADRIAN DONNELLY (40:54); MATT GIFFORD (43:36) and DANNY SCANLON (44:07) for the men (teams of four) and Suzy, Claire and TRACY PEZ (52:25) for the women (teams of three).
SALLY REEVE was first of the brand new personal bests with 51:28, an improvement of 29 seconds. Then came PETE COOK 53:11; ANDREA WESTCOTT 54:22; MEGAN SUTTON 60:24 and ROSE SUTTON 69:49.
Birthday girl PENNY SCHENKEL enjoyed lots of birthday greetings around the course and a good 10K run taking 64:42, her best this year.
Still Time To Enter The Stevenage Half – Anniversary Marathon and Stevenage Half
Fairlands Valley Spartans are in their 40th Anniversary Year and a high point will be the Stevenage Marathon which they are organising on Sunday 20th October. The marathon is only organised every ten years. There will also be the annual half marathon on the same day. This is the real community half marathon.
The full marathon is FULL and there is a waiting list. There are still places in the half marathon but HURRY, HURRY. The events are licenced by England Athletics and organised by a local community running club. A total of 880 entries are already in. That’s 482 in the half and 398 in the full marathon.
There’s a new course with a start and finish will be in Hampson Park. This year the charity is Pancreatic Cancer UK. Entries are £40 for the full marathon and £30 for the half with discounts for members of clubs affiliated to England Athletics. The races will include county championships for Hertfordshire.
To enter please visit
Can You Help The Stevenage Marathon and Half Marathon? Visit Fairlands Valley Spartans for more details
20 Years of Parkrun – Parkrun Highlights 5th October
Parkrun celebrated its 20th birthday on Saturday and 44 Spartans joined in the celebrations.
There were 465 finishers at Stevenage parkrun and 31 of them were Spartans. They included GRANT RAMSAY fourth in 18:55 and KAREN ELLIS fastest from Fairlands in 26:08.
Spartans running other parkruns included GAIL MACKIE 21:37 at Storeys Field; PETE SMITH 22:59 at North Yorkshire Water Park; KELLY McHALE third woman and only missing her PB by five seconds with 23:34 and MIKE REYNOLDS 30:18 at Panshanger; CHLOE CHAPMAN 33:13 and ANNABELLE WHITE 33:14 at Castle Park (Bishops Stortford).
From a start with just 13 runners and five volunteers in Bushy Park on 2 October 2004 there are now more than 10 million parkrunners around the world.
Stevenage Striders Running Club
We had a great turn out at park run for their 20th birthday
Special mentions this week:
- Steve Moore was first in age with an age grading score of 74.79%
- Helen Moye took her touristing all the way to Glasgow!
- Our ‘Golden Boys’ who may need to be renamed our ‘Diamond Boys’ took part in Kettering Parkrun. Russ Andrews finished in 25.52 and Ken Marshall 27.16
- Not forgetting Sarah Kinsella who managed to get a profile pic worthy photo from Angus
Helen Moye took part in the Glasgow Half (Great Scottish Run). Helen described the run as one of her most enjoyable half’s, including hills, highland cows, a section of motorway, bridges over the Clyde and loads of Bagpipes. And Glaswegians really know how to put on a great event with fabulous support. Helen completed the event in a fantastic time of 1:54:32!
Head coach Chrissie Thomas is on to half marathon number 77, completing the Dorney Lakes Half in 2:38:00, well done!
Marc Hagland got another great themed medal, completing the Phoenix Thunder Pants Half in 2:25, congratulations!
Adam Hough competed at Spartan London South West Trifecta +1 Weekend:
OPEN BEAST: 03:03:04
NIGHT SPRINT: 0:46:12
COMPETITIVE SUPER: 01:22:35
OPEN SPRINT: 0:49:14
Stevenage Phoenix Running Club
Herts 5k
The Herts 10k race in aid of The Rennie Grove Hospice returned this year, bigger than ever. Not only was this the first year of a new route, but they also added in a 5k and a fun run. On Sunday 6thOctober Amy Whitby travelled to St Albans intending to run the 10k. However, due to illness, Amy listened to her body and decided on the 5k one lap course instead, completing it in 37mins 51s. Amy said the course was “tough yet interesting, filled with hills and spirals”.
Standalone 10k
When you mention Standalone 10k, “flat” is not a word that comes to mind. Nonetheless, this race organised by the North Herts Road Runners is much loved by the local community and always proves to be a fantastic event. This Sunday we had nine members running the course, a few of whom beat their times from last year. Ian Harvey was first home in 42mins 35s, followed by Ian Young in 45mins 42s and Conor O’Neil in 46mins 01s. Despite feeling under the weather, Jodie Kantas ran 49mins 16s and said she was “happy to run a steady Tempo and enjoyed the race atmosphere”. Next to cross the finish line was Ken Hall in 49mins 40s. Ken’s time was not only a PB, but a club 10k record for MV70 and also made him second in the county championships. Damla Akkul finished in 54mins 14s and earned the club’s Bronze level award (55% WAVA). Neil Homewood was pleased to get under an hour and quicker than last year by running 58mins 07s. John Harris completed his first 10k race in 01hr 02mins 06s, earning a Club level award (running 4 races with the club) and Denise Ricot ran 01hr 12mins 35s.
Ultra X Jordan (In Ashley’s words)
Firstly, I’d like to say a bit about last year. I don’t think I made any secrets of my disappointment of my DNF last year. This was meant to be that once in a lifetime adventure, not do half of it and finish it a year later. We all know as runners how it feels to get injured, but for it to happen in that way was a horrible feeling for me.
This is Ultra X’s 9th edition of this event. It’s held in the Wadi Rum desert, a protected area in the south of Jordan, close to the Saudi Arabia border. Also known as the Valley of the Moon, this desert is home to various wildlife such as Scorpions, Snakes, Spiders, Wild dogs, Camels and many other species of insects and birds.
Monday, day 1, 40km and 232m in elevation. Everyone is eager to get started, you could sense the excitement on the start line.
The game plan was to keep it incredibly steady, placement and finishing time meant nothing to me here, just go checkpoint by checkpoint and make sure each daily finish line came round.
Tuesday came and went with success, I was feeling good after the 39km and 548m elevation. However by evening, I had a bit of a turn, it could’ve been heat stroke or a stomach bug but I felt ill. I couldn’t hold food down for the rest of the week. I was getting by on energy gels and Pepsi.
Wednesday, the long day. A 2am alarm clock for a 4am start, I’m struggling. I’ve decided to hike the remaining distance because of my stomach, which meant as soon as the temperature picks up, I’m out in the heat all day. Temperatures were consistently around 35 all week. I was so happy to clear this stage of 56km and 883 elevation in 14 hours 6 mins, crawling in last place.
Thursday, people in camp are suffering but buzzing. We’ve broke the back of this beast. Another 11 hours and 27 out on course for me, in the 47km/468m elevation stage.
I had my big low before getting to CP6, I was done, ready to quit.
I sat in the sand against a rock, staring at a vast open space. The guy in last place behind me, Yousef, stopped and chatted with me for a bit, we agreed to help each other to the next CP. Things got better from there.
Then we get to Friday, 8 hrs 3 mins to do 35km. Not bad considering I hadn’t had a meal over 2 days, vomiting and hobbling around cos my feet have swollen.
I was in higher spirit on Friday. Thinking all day, how shall I celebrate crossing the line.
To sum up this week: It’s been the most incredible and most challenging adventure of a lifetime.
ParkRun
This week we had 18 runners and one volunteer, celebrating 20 years of ParkRun.
