A&D Runners are mad for Manchester - Ashford and District Road Running Club

Spring may have stalled but the runners from A&D have been fully revved up with a great fortnight’s running and racing.

Parkrun

The Saturday 5k is still as popular as ever with some of our runners venturing farther afield. The Ashford event saw Richard Boakes tantalisingly close to the 20-minute mark with a time of 20:13. The ’19 club’ was well attended by Kieran Hodges (19:21), Daniel Green (19:19) and Jack Hodges (19:10), earning him a 3rd place finish.

Trevor Sparkes travelled to Bushy Park, running a time of 24:37 whilst Will Whittington and Emma Jenkins took in the sea air of Walmer & Deal with times of 26:26 and 36:00 respectively.

Cardiff and London Landmarks Half Marathon

Rachel Jenkins had waited over 900 days to run the Cardiff Half Marathon. It was worth the wait and was rewarded with blue skies, a brilliant crowd and a time of 2:19:30.

The landmarks of London must make for an inspirational back-drop to the capital’s spring half with all four of our runners coming home with PBs. Emma Jenkins was deservedly chuffed with 3:04:14, Keith Lynn broke two hours with 1:59:03 and Trevor Sparkes took almost 4 minutes off his previous best with a time of 2:00:03, and Will Wittington’s new PB of 2:05:16.

Food, Glorious Food

Nothing builds an appetite quite like running, and food was on the brain (and the medals) for some of our runners. Holly Forrest took on the SVN Nutty Nuts Half Marathon (the mind boggles!), completing the 13.1 miles in 3:11:55. Mr. Marathon (Rik Holden) took on the Nutty Nuts Marathon (Snickers in new money) distance in 3:41:20. Becky Hodgson opted for confectionary-based bling of a different kind at the Runbelievable Cookiethon, covering 6.56 miles in 1:48:30.

Paris Marathon

A week is all that Rik Holden needs between marathons and he was at it again, this time living the high life in Paris. The route takes in the iconic landmarks of the city of love but with a time of 3:09:19 there was no time for sight-seeing or romance. Nous aimons le PB Monsieur Holden brought back duty-free.

Manchester Marathon

Manchester: the home of Boddingtons, Coronation Street and the Happy Mondays, but it was a happy Sunday for some the club’s finest as they took on the ‘flat and friendly’ Manchester Marathon. Manchester, the 4th largest marathon in Europe and the qualifier to represent England in the Commonwealth Games, makes it one of the calendar’s premier events.

The week’s snow abated leaving cool and favourable conditions for the 24,000 runners and spectators that lined the course, creating an atmosphere that our runners rose to. Paul Spencer covered the 26.2 miles in 4:14:43 whilst the atmosphere lifted Kim McHenry to a PB of 4:50:48. Any marathon under three hours is a fantastic feat of speed and endurance. James Booth set a self-testing pace for the first 20 and continued to punch out great numbers in the last 6 to hold on for an inspiring time of 2:59:38 proving that it doesn’t always need to be a PB to be a great run.

Enter stage right: Mr Nick Collins. Looking to break his 2021 London Marathon time of 2:35:38, Nick has made no secret of his ambitions and has been training feverishly over the winter. Those frosty 5am starts running tempo around overflow car parks is only for the most hardened and dedicated. Recently hampered by illness and injury, Nick was running into the unknown, but spurred on by his family amongst the throngs of supporters, Nick ran every mile under 6 minutes and in doing so smashed his PB and the age category A&D club record with an amazing time of 2:33:35. 77th place out of all those tens of thousands…well done Nick! Mic drop, exit stage left.

Well done to all. Next stop… Brighton!