Almosts support Anna and set new parkrun bests
A GROUP of Almost Athletes joined barefoot runner Anna Mcnuff as she passed through Tewkesbury towards Gloucester on her quest to complete the equivalent of 100 marathons.
There were some excellent parkrun results with several Almosts achieving personal bests.
At Cheltenham Martin Foster came 13th in 19.56 while Donna Evans was first in her age category in 24.08 and there was a PB for Helen Fursman with 23.04 and for Felicity Read with 29.29.
The new King George V parkrun saw Matt Polson second in 18.44, Prash Sripathi fourth with 19.38, Duncan Mansour seventh with 20.38 and Ross Greening 10th with 21.21. Mansour was first in his age category and Greening’s time was a PB.
There were also five other PBS at the event for Steve Adams in 23.23, Rachel Fargher in 26.42, Sue Monaghan in 29.32, Jayne Adams in 29.52 and Jeff Tibbles in 31.29.
At the Mundy parkrun Ben Taylor was first to finish in 20.17, whilst at Gloucester City Nick Lewis came third in 19.29 and Ben Stone fourth in 19.38.
Hester Coggin was fourth lady with 23.23, as was Patricia Dendy at the Mallards Pike parkrun with 22.48.
Other parkruns in which members of Almost Athletes took part included Armidale in Australia, Barclay, Bexley, Heaton, Ipswich, Lymington Woodside, Winchester and Woodley.
Seven Almosts took part in the Cardiff Half Marathon with Catherine Daly the first to finish in 1:55. Russell Jones achieved a massive PB with 2:13 (20 minutes faster than his previous best time), and Penny Lewis completed her first half marathon in 2:38.
Also running were Dave Chittock with 1:57, Catherine Mason with 2:08, Deb Cartlidge with 2:38 and Karla Cleverley with 3:15.
At the Cricklade Half Marathon, Jeanette Gullick came first in her age group in 1:39, followed by Steve Wallbridge in 1:57, Sheila Chatterley in 2:03, Christopher Benjamin in 2:09, and Sarah Wallbridge and Debby Masding both with 2:13.
Martyn Fisher took on the Hoohaah Wimpole Estate Half Marathon and finished in 1:57, whilst Hannah Brown finished in 1:42 at the Sudeley Castle sprint Duathlon.
Ingrid Harris tackled the Clarendon off-road event and came in as sixth lady with a time of 4:03 while Jackie Slaughter completed the Loch Ness Marathon in Scotland in 5:01, and Allan Green ran the Queen of Dragons Marathon along the river Thames at Windsor in 5:17.
The Devil’s Aquathon attracted a few Almosts with Shaun Carr second overall in the shorter (400m swim) and 10km run with a time of 1:00. Giles Foster finished in 1:13 and Adrian Courtenay in 1:37 while Jamie Courtenay took on the longer 2km swim and completed the event in 1:46.