It was a busy weekend for athletes from Wolverhampton & Bilston AC as the autumn road season kicked in with a vengeance with some marathon prep races, a handful of half marathons and some shorter faster stuff.
A trio travelled north to take part in the South Cheshire 20, a good opportunity to rubber stamp their marathon preparation and practice fuelling in race conditions. The route was a single lap but very undulating which meant for a proper test on the back of heavy mileage. Tony Cheema was first back for the club in 30th place in 2.24.11, Jay Patel came home in 35th place in 2.25.37 and Holly Baddeley was 45th, 4th female and 2nd in her age group in 2.34.42.
There were plenty of opportunities to race over the half marathon distance with a lot of locations beginning with the letter W. If Sesame Street did races this week they would certainly be concentrating on that letter.
A couple took part in the Worcester Half Marathon travelling down the M5 to take part in a race around the city, full of twists and turns and with a quarter of a mile on the grass in the centre of the racecourse at around the 6-mile mark. Dave Lewis was missing from the initial results, but a bit of emailing saw him appear in 40th in 1.26.40 and Dave Norman started well but fell away towards the end to come home in 52nd place in 1.29.05. At Wrexham Sarah Thurley was 206th in 1.30.41 and Rob Edwards finished in 1.40.09 in 300th place in the Village Bakery Half Marathon.
And a few took part in the Wolverhampton Half Marathon however the results are not the best with hardly any club details listed.
Paul Dean put in a fantastic performance to come 2nd in 1.21.37, Rob Carrington was 91st in 1.48.53, Daniel Eccles was listed as Wolverhampton & Bilston and finished in 159th place in 2.00.53 and Myles Frost, who is definitely a W&B athlete, was 185th in 2.08.49.
Over the shorter distance in the Wolverhampton 10k Shaun Bennett was 5th in 39.30, Stephen Green was 21st in 48.16 and Mary Solomon was 102nd in 1.01.42. Sheila Porter was listed as W&B in the results for both the half marathon and the 10k running 1.37.44.
Also, over the same distance a couple took part in the Wilne 10k with Louise Hackett finishing in 59th overall and 4th female in a time of 37.03 and Lizzie Pennington was 144th and 16th female stopping the clock in 40.36.
Pravesh Patel was in London to take part in the Big Half rubbing shoulders with the super elite around the capital. He went out hard but struggled over the second half of the course still managing to cross the line in a rapid 1.14.54 to take 120th position.
And finally, Graham Young took part in the Snowdon Ultra 50 finishing in 33rd place in 14.26.47 beating last years’ time by a massive two and a half hours.
Dave Norman
