PBs galore at Donfaster 5k

Friday night saw the return of a fast, local 5k, offering runners a shot at achieving a new PB over the distance. Andy Heppenstall got round quickest in 16:31 (13th overall) to earn himself a PB and new V40 club record. He was closely followed by Richard Cottam who also achieved a PB, with a time of 16:46 and 19th position overall. Gareth Irvine wasn’t far behind either, getting round in a solid time of 19:13. Hannah Shaw was the next Penistone runner to achieve a PB with a time of 20:42 (89th), narrowly missing the club record by five seconds. Ashley Howlett was 95th in 20:56, also getting a PB following on from a week of illness.

A contingent of the club made their way up to the Lake District at the weekend to compete in Saturday’s Hodgson Brothers Fell Relay. There was a good result for the club, finishing 51st in a very strong field of teams. A storming performance on leg 4 from Tom Fryers and George Parr in 1:21:26 beat the club record for that leg which they had set the previous year. The other runners were Sarah Walch and Paul Fryers on leg one, Simon Pike and James Fryers on leg two and Steve Sanders and Jon Hallam on leg three.

Also competing on the fells were Mark and Heather Graham, completing the near ten-mile Curbar Commotion in the Peak District. First back was Heather in a time of 1:50:25 in 201st overall, closely followed by Mark in 1:55:56 to take 225th position in a large field of runners.

After his efforts in Cumbria on Saturday, Tom Fryers stood on the start line for Cambridge 10k the following morning, getting round in 37:06 and achieving a new PB in the process. Peter Beever was also in 10k action over the weekend, completing the Morley 10k in Leeds in a time of 46:55 to take 119th place.

Experienced ultra runner Harriet Drouin completed her latest feat by finishing the Round Rotherham run in 12 hours and 12 minutes, knocking 47 minutes off her PB over the 50-mile distance.

There were a record number of PFRAC runners out on Saturday, also the 20th anniversary of parkrun. There was a first gender place for Dan Rushforth at Penistone and second gender places for Suzanne McGill, also at Penistone and James Mumford at Heslington. James had the strongest age-graded run of the weekend at 80.23%, whilst Suzanne impressively reached 78.94% less than a week after a sub-three hour marathon in Berlin. Also in Germany recently were Myfanwy and Peter Cross, who completed Hasenheide parkrun on Thursday 3rd October, a special event parkrun for German Unity Day.