After the storms had passed the sun shone down on us for our new annual event for everyone’s race calendar. The Wild One is a multi-lapped marathon which can be completed as a solo, pair or team of five.
The race was originally organised by a founding member of our club, Stuart Wild, hence the name ‘The Wild One’. Although he sadly passed away during organisation of last year’s event. We decided to go ahead as a charity fun run, with organisation led by BPJ Gavin Paskin. The race went down so well, the club had lots asking when the next one would be. So the race was renamed ‘The Wild One’ and a crack team of volunteers, led by race director Claire Shacklock started planning.
This year we wanted it bigger as well as ensuring the full marathon was UKA affiliated. The race was sponsored by Startin Honda and the local Youthcomm Radio, who came down to support with their bus and music for support.
The day has gone brilliant we have had a total of 220 entries. The off-road event was considerably dry after the bad weather of the last few days. The clouds kept it cool for the first few hours but when the sun came out it made the race very difficult in the heat.
The race was also optional fancy dress, this years was animals, so we have had a mixture of things including monkeys to penguins and dogs. The prize for best fancy dress went to the canine-themed ‘The Wild Pack’ (Tracy Kennish, Carrie Lewis, Usha Hira, Kay Parry and Alison Leharne).
We raised around £2500 which will be split evenly between St. Richard’s Hospice and MNDA.
We have already had lots of positive emails and comments come back about the support of our marshals and the fun people have had.
A huge thank you to everyone who’s helped out with the organisation of this race and all of our sponsors/people who have donated prizes, etc, these include:
- Startin Honda
- Youthcomm Radio
- Rebecca Jones, Countrywide
- Chris Attwood, Severn Trent Water
- Steven Busby of Stafford, suppliers of strawberries to Tesco
- Jason Green (Marks and Spencer)
- Amanda husband (Marks and Spencer)
Top finishers
Solo males
- 1st: Ian Radford (Black Pear Joggers) – 3:14:48
- 2nd: Ned Lammas (Evesham Vale) – 3:22:37
- 3rd: Steve Edwards (Bourton RR) – 3:28:20
Solo females
- 1st: Karen Galpin (Almost Athletes) – 3:41:01
- 2nd: Sheila Barbour (Evesham Vale) – 4:10:35
- 3rd: Sue Shacklock and Teri Thompson (joint) (Black Pear Joggers) – 4:23:20
Pairs
- 1st: Team Tempo (Sarah Bland and Rob Minton) – 2:55:32
- 2nd: The Real Wild Ones (Dan Cale and Chris Attwood) – 3:10:31
- 3rd: Wonkey Donkeys 2 (Martin Williams and Jon Briggs) – 3:15:36
Teams of five
- 1st: Big Test Icicles (Leo Taggio, Nick Hooper, Neil Herron, Clive Andrews and Gareth Wynne) – 2:53:07
- 2nd: Parkrun Wildebeasts (Richard Drewett, Richard Beetlestone, Nick Herbert, Ben Dillon and Adam Pollock) – 3:03:22
- 3rd: Pegga Pegit (Jeremy Jones, Darren Salisbury, Sophie Booth, Mike Lane and Rebecca Wilkins) – 3:04:39
The full race results can be found on the BPJ website.
More photos of the day will be available in due course.
Hope to see you there next year.
