It was a quieter week for athletes from Wolverhampton & Bilston AC as there was a lull from the track action but opportunities both on and off road for those looking for a race.
There was midweek action in Ironbridge in race 5 of 6 in Telford AC’s Sexarathon Series a large group took part in the Ironbridge 4, a race out along the Silken Way, over the river and back. Dan Turner continued to be at the sharp end finishing in 12th in 22.33, Beth Tabor was 2nd lady and 31st overall finishing in 24.09 to cement her lead in the overall series, Dave Smith was 33rd in 24.14, Greg Asbury 39th in 24.41, Paul Dean 42nd in 24.59, Dave Newport 46th in 25.16, Darren Owen-Jones 47th in 25.17 and Lucy Calrow had another storming run to finish 4th lady and 49th overall. Dave Norman was 66th in 26.24, Chris Apperley 68th in 26.29, Sabrina Thomas claimed 1st in her age group in 71st place in 26.50, Simon Calrow was 75th in 27.05, Shaun Bennett returned from a bout of Covid to place 77th in 27.06, Holly Baddeley was 81st in 27.11, Sarah Thurley 83rd in 27.20, Tony Cheema 88th in 27.31, Brett Robinson 95th in 27.53, Russ Newman 103rd in 28.13, Rob Edwards 121st in 29.35, Anthony Pinson 134th in 30.16 and Craig Buggins was 166th in 32.00. Elsewhere on Wednesday Rob Cartwright took part in the Staff Knot 5 miles race placing 7th in a time of 29.16.
There was more action at the weekend with the club’s marathon couple of Dave Joynson and Gillian Mitchell taking their quest for 200 marathons across the Atlantic to take part in the San Francisco marathon. Dave finished in 3.30.16 after a few weeks of calf trouble interrupted his preparations and Gill crossed the line in 4.58.50.
Closer to home Pete Hood ran two laps of Halesowen in the Black Country 10k finishing in 42.30 to place 29th and claimed 1st M60. Ben Pilsbury took part in a “race” at the National Trust site at Dudmaston, advertised as a challenging 10k through woodland starting at Comer Woods, there are no results as they class this as just a run but Ben clocked 42.54 and would have been first over the finish line if there had been one. And Dave Norman covered 5 laps as part of a 7-person team at the Conti Thunder Run, a 24 hour relay starting at mid-day on Saturday and finishing at mid-day on Sunday with the winning team being the one who covered the most laps in the quickest time. The team covered 32 laps of the 10k course in a total time of 24.19.56 claiming 1st place by 13 minutes just going ahead for the last time early on the Sunday morning as the top two teams had been leapfrogging each other all night. Imogen Harley also took part in a team of Cannock Chase runners covering a couple of laps, in particular one circuit at 3.30 in the morning.
Dave Norman
