Beverley Athletic Club – 17th August 2021

There was a sea of blue and yellow at Beverley Westwood parkrun (BWp) on 7 August when Beverley AC used their local parkrun as a graduation event for their 2021 Couch to 5k (C25K) runners. Six of this year’s cohort ran the course on the Westwood to complete the 13-week programme: Andrea Pickles, Emma Everett, Monica Sharma, Sarah Collins, Sarah Wilson and Kirtikaben Prajapati.

Alex Hamlin, Gary Major and Gary Thomas were also members of this cohort who started their C25K programme in January. They did their graduation runs on 24 July.

The 2021 cohort was the fastest Beverley AC C25K group since the programme started in 2018. Their average finish time was 37:30, a fantastic achievement!

Credit is due to C25K coach Patrick Marshal who is a regular runner and volunteer at BWp. As well as taking the training sessions, Patrick supported and encouraged his C25K group at their graduation run and followed them over the finish line. Thanks are due also to Sarah Collins and John and Paula Nicholls who supported Patrick in the training sessions, and to Fiona Oakes who looks after the admin for the 13-week programme.

The next Beverley AC C25K programme will start towards the end of January 2022 and further details about registering for this popular programme will be available in due course.

Beverley AC also used the parkrun on 7 August for a handicap race and 39 members took part, all aiming to beat their handicap time. Beverley AC runners took the first three places with Robert Sparkes in his first ever parkrun crossing the line first in 17:56.

Charlotte Sherman did her first parkrun back in October 2015 at Woodhouse Moor, Leeds, finishing in 24:08 and was making a comeback to running after illness. She was the second female overall as well as being the first Beverley AC female across the line. Her finishing time was a very impressive 22:34 in her first run at BWp. What a comeback!

Regular BWp volunteer and Beverley AC member John Nicholls celebrated his birthday in style by getting a PB of 23.35 while his wife Paula also got a PB of 32.15. Another 11 members of Beverley AC also recorded new personal bests.

Other Beverley AC achievements were second place overall and first in the VW40 age group for Stephen Walker and first VW65 for Christine Whitehouse.

13 members of Beverley AC joined the team of volunteers at parkrun. Seven of them gave up their run to volunteer while the other six carried out roles before and after the run so they could take part in the handicap event.

Junior parkrun is proving to be particularly popular in this area and a new event for children has started on Sundays at 9:00am at King George Playing Fields, Cottingham Road, Hull HU6 8QA. More information about this weekly 2k event for children aged 4-14 on their website.

Another club handicap race was the Gilberdyke 10 mile on Sunday 15 August, which saw 30 club members take part. First Beverley runner to finish was Robert Sparkes in a time of 1:01:20 followed by the first Beverley female runner, Catherine Snowball, finishing in 1:09:35. Congratulations to all runners!

The Pittaway Beverley 10K and B & A Scaffolding Fun run is taking place on Sunday 26th September as the rearranged 2020 race and therefore currently has no entries available but fun runners can still join in. Entries can be made via the Beverley AC website.