Ultras, a marathon, the Yateley series – and a talk about “The wildlife we run past”
Two ultra-marathons
Two Farnham Runners have completed incredible ultra-marathon events recently.
Simon Teagle ran 480 km (300 miles) around the Cornish Coast with over 18000m of elevation – that’s up and down Everest twice – in 7 days, as one of five team members, and raised £15,472 for the Samson Centre for MS charity.
In June, Ivan Chunett completed the Comrades Marathon – 86km and 1756m of elevation – a double marathon and achieved a childhood dream from when he watched Bruce Fordyce dominate the race. He wrote:
“Before this year I had only run four marathons and one 34 mile (55km) run in the last 4 years since I started running again. The big challenge I have set my sell is the Comrades Marathon (a 54 mile (86 km) run from Durban to Pietermaritzburg) in South Africa in June. Part of my training is running at least the marathon distance a month ever month this year. This has included running a marathon in the heat in Oman in January (3:45), a very muddy trail marathon that started with running up Butser Hill in Queen Elizabeth Country Park (4:49) in February, a half marathon warm-up run to the Fleet half in March, Brighton marathon (3:55) in April and my final training long run in May was the Run to The Sea, a 50km run from Horsham to Brighton (5:08). All the hard work has been done now it’s all the mind games until the big day!”
Despite some challenges with cramps in both calves at 50km, his determination conquered and he achieved it in 9 hrs 25 minutes. Afterwards he commented:
“The race medal might be the smallest I have but it’s the best!!”
Bedford Marathon
Three Farnham Runners chose the Running Grand Prix smooth traffic free tarmac motor racing circuit of Bedford Autodrome for a marathon.
Emma Dawson was keen to get a result that would qualify her for a “Good for Age” place in the London Marathon. She finished in 3:38:47, comfortably within the time needed. She was accompanied by Mark Maxwell who clocked a similar time. Sue Taylor was pleased to complete 20 miles of the course after little training.
Yateley 10k series
A number of Farnham Runners competed in the popular Yateley 10km series of Wednesday evening races. All three this year had good conditions, dry and not too warm. Robert Drummond, Jane Georghiou and Mark Maxwell completed all three. Mark ran in the August event just a few days after the Bedford Marathon.
Lizzie May finished as 5th lady in the second race and 3rd in the third race, placing 1st and 2nd in the senior lady’s category with splendid times of 39:53 and 40:00.
Some others gained age category prizes: Jane Georghiou 1st F65 in all three, and Chris Jackson 3rd M70 in June and 2nd in August. In fourth positions were F55 Candy Waller in two events and F50 Emma Dawson in July.
Other participants included Emma Dawson, Lizzie May, Candy Waller, James Fabian, Terry Steadman, Vicky Goodluck, Emma Patton, Gemma Whitehouse and Tony Hollands.
“The wildlife we run past”
The popular club bar evenings continued with a most interesting and entertaining talk from member Howard Inns, author and trustee of the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust.
Entitled “The wildlife we run past” the presentation was a great chance to learn from an expert “what you might be missing as you run through our beautiful landscapes”.
Howard has made several appearances on BBC programmes “Springwatch” and recently “Countryfile”.