Markfield, Weston, Fradley and Lee Valley Indoor Arena

Alun, out in front again!
Alun-Lloyd Thomas is in a rich vein of form at present and he continued this in the second Club Championship race of the season, the Markfield 10k. He led the Club’s contingent of 15 home in a sparkling chip time of 34:47 and a 4^th place finish in this very competitive Leicestershire Winter League fixture. Like Alun-Lloyd, Shane Chapman and Jenny Laing are in training for spring marathons and they showed their training is going well when they were next home in times of 38:47 and 41:24 and overall finishing places of 57^th and 101^st respectively. Club stalwarts Andy Orme and Steve Leafe both ran well to record times of 41:49 and 42:42 before Adrian Middleton, who is more at home over the country, recorded 46:00. Rebecca Atkins continued her improved form recording a creditable 47:44 with Peter Barsby a whisker behind in 47:46. Mitch Timms made a welcome return to racing with 47:55 before Laura Harper gave everything in recording 48:33. Malcolm Moore, having a good injury free spell at present, stopped the clock in 50:52 before Seran Bradley, Emily Atkins, Inge Moore and Pauline Cooper completed the finishers for the Club in times of 55:21, 56:28, 69:13 and 70:03 respectively.
A number of the Club’s runners were in action at the Fradley 10k and the Weston 5 with the standout performance probably being Simon Reynold’s 32:23 for 22^nd place in the Weston 5. Also at Weston, Nikki Reeves and Mark Harriott crossed the line together in 36:13 before Lisa Wright and Holly Holland ran well for top 100 finishers in times of 37:49 and 39:35 respectively. In the Fradley 10k Paul Glover led the Club’s representative’s home in 45:08 edging out Tracey in 47:11. Graham Blackshaw recorded a chip time of 51:19 with David Lunn behind ‘gun to tape’ but recording a quicker chip time of 51:16.
The Club’s runners are nothing if not versatile and this was emphasised by Chris Gunstone exchanging last weekend’s mud-fest at Bosworth for the relative comfort of the Lee Valley Indoor Arena where he tackled the 400 and 800m in this year’s BMAF Indoor Championships. In recording 68:2 for 400m and 2:31:15 for 800m Chris emphasised that variety is one of the keys to an enjoyable veteran runner’s career.