JANE WADEY not only co-ordinated the Fairlands Valley take-over of Saturday’s Stevenage parkrun but the all-time participation record was smashed. 643 completed the 5K run, more than fifty more than the previous record of 586 set four years ago before Covid.
Fairlands Valley Spartans provided about 50 volunteers and 57 club members completed the event. There were marshals, barcode scanners, timekeepers, pacers, tailwalkers, token sorters, all sorts of jobs being done and rewarded by a bumper attendance.
In the race there were 643 participants including 266 women; 92 first timers; 78 parkrun personal bests and the halfway through the field time was 29 minutes 48 seconds.
Spartan SIMON JACKSON was second overall in 17 minutes 15 seconds and ABI PEZ second woman in 21:08. GRANT RAMSAY beat 20 minutes with 19:56, spot on task as he was the 20 minute pacer, and GABBIE O’BRIEN was a top ten woman at eighth with 23:44.
MATT GIFFORD scored a new parkrun personal best of 20:30 and TAMSIN BROOKS of 46:37.
Tromso Polar Night Marathon
On Saturday 6th January MIKE JEFFS took on the Tromso Polar night marathon in Norway.
The route was 26.2 miles of gruelling weather and terrain all in the dark. The temperature was -4 but with the wind it was around -9 degrees. Coming into Tromso itself a blizzard struck with 33mph head winds making the last six miles a real slog.
He was 21st in 3 hours 41 minutes 52 seconds.
Mike said it was an amazing experience and definitely the toughest challenge of his life.
Ultra John Goes Country to Capital
John NELMS ran the country to capital 43 mile ultra marathon on Saturday. Starting in Wendover with 23 miles of muddy trails before hitting the grand union canal in Denham for 20 miles of towpath to the finish near Paddington station in central London. This was John’s sixth time in this event and he finished in 9 hours 31 minutes.
Welwyn Half Marathon
Wendy Tharani ran the Welwyn Half Marathon in 2:08:22. It was a fairly low key and friendly event, very well marshalled. Out and back from the stadium at Gosling. Sunny but quite cold!  
County Cross Country
In the County Cross Country at St Albans LIZ CROWLEY was 80th in 56:14 and SHARON CROWLEY 86th in 1 hour and 19 seconds (1:00:19).
Walt Disney World Marathon
PAUL HOLGATE said the Walt Disney World Marathon was the perfect way to spend his Birthday. It’s the fourth time his birthday and the marathon have been on the same day since 1/1/2000 and he was very pleased that his 6 hours 50 minutes 9 seconds (6:50:09) was seven minutes quicker than the last time (2018) and 1.5 hours quicker than my latest previous marathons in October (Snowdon/Eryri) and November (Steppingley).
He was 10,250th out of the 12,694 finishers.
