The website may have been quiet for a few months but the clubs been rather busy.
Over the summer months training has continued to be held on Wednesday nights at 7pm with the sessions being held in Sandwell Valley with attendance and membership numbers growing steadily. Welcome to all who have trained with club during this time. as Autumnal nights draw in we are once again back on the roads.
Whilst the website admin was sleeping the club members have been out and about enjoying events restarting. Back in July the resident mad ultra-marathon runner Steve Plummer took part in a 100k (62 mile) “Race to the Stones” event on July 10th . Steve ran the off-road course in 16 hours and 15 minutes .
On the subject of madness, the Cadair Idris Half Marathon was also held in July with two of the club flying the flag over the border in the Welsh mountains. Karl Moore returned to this event and ran a superb time of 2 hours and 51 mins, which was just slower than last years time – why is that a superb time I hear you ask? Well Karl was knocked off his bike two weeks before this and was advised not to run! He also had a nasty fall in the race (see his knee in the picture) . This year Karl was joined by Ben who finished just outside the top 10 in 2 hours 37 minutes a good run for his first time in the hills.
A week after the mountain race the local Birmingham Black Country Half Marathon was held. The popular race starts on the canal in Wolverhampton and finishes in Birmingham some 13 miles later. A few of the club carried their places over from last years postponed event with newbie Laura Walton running the race along with Blind Dave (guided by Rosemary) and Ben who finished in in just under 1 hour 30 mins on heavy legs.
Ben returned to the fells at the Battle of Borders race in the Long Mynd in September with a 2nd place finish – marking the first time (outside of parkrun) that he has finished in a podium spot, the club are sure it will not be the last top 3 spot.
Another new face to the club Owain Morris had a busy few weeks of racing following some time off with injury, starting with the Chester 10k in a time of 46mins then a trip out to Anglesey for another 10k followed by the Chester Half in September with a PB of 1 hour 38 minutes. Well done Owain – improving all the time! we look forward to seeing you in action in the coming cross country season.
As with all clubs, West Bromwich Harriers have a heavy presence around the local Parkruns. The popular choices for club members are Sandwell Valley, Walsall Arboretum and Perry Hall. Some of the stand out performances have come again from new faces to the club, with Alex’s Moulton 5k time coming down to 25 minutes and Oli Moore now running sub 20 minute 5ks – there are to many Parkrun achievements to mention here but keep up the hard work all.
That said, a special mention has to go out to club legend John Buckby who is always a leader in his V80 age category has now ran 250 Park Runs. John says he will continue with the parkruns as long as he can – so hopefully we will write more about Johns achievements in a few months time. the day after the parkrun mile stone Dan Floyd ran the Stafford half in 2:05.
On the same day as John’s milestone achievement a team of five from the club embarked on the Equinox 24 challenge. The format of the event see’s teams of various sizes competing to run as many laps of 10k as possible in the 24 hour window. Sadly through COVID and other issues the team was reduced to minimum numbers competing against must larger teams. The race started well, and after each member of the 5 man team had completed two laps on the course the club were sat comfortably in 2nd position. Talk in the tent was about how we were going to celebrate our success… there was even talk of a movie being made about the achievement when our luck ran out. Unfortunately Dom took a nasty fall on the course, breaking ribs, fracturing and dislocating fingers in the process. A team meeting was held and having had Dom’s almost complete lap removed from the results and the fact that with 4 runners there would be little respite between legs the team decided to withdraw (to the beer bus!). Having almost tasted victory, and Dom having tasted pain killers a well earned pint or three was consumed. All members of the team had ran 3 lots of 10k in the space of 11 hours.
Over the next few weeks the club will be at the Road Relays, London Marathon, Loch Ness Marathon and obviously parkrun – heart n sole.
(Admin will update this summary further over the next few days, he’s gone for a rest again now)
West Bromwich Harriers 