This week's news: 04/01/2014

2015 began with a special 9am New Year’s Day parkrun at Congleton. 

Martin and Lucy Coleman at Congleton parkrun

95 hardy runners braved the effects from the previous evening’s festivities to run the three laps of Astbury Mere. Amongst these were 7 members of Sandbach Striders running club.  Andy Thomas cunningly hid his Striders shirt thus enabling him to pip Terry Coppenhall to the accolade of ‘first Strider home’. Ten year old Lucy Coleman outsprinted her Dad Martin over the line to finish her third successive 5k parkrun.

The full results were as follows:

21:22 Andy Thomas
21:23 Terry Coppenhall
21:27 Giles Hodges
22:47 Francis Gilchrist
28:36 Lucy Coleman
28:50 Martin Coleman
31:25 Eve Roberts

Giles Hodges at Congleton parkrun

Just an hour later Francis Gilchrist lined up alongside runners in Hanley park to run their special 10am parkrun. Francis finished 44th out of 138 runners in a time of 24:02

Two days later it was time for the usual regular Saturday morning parkrun. Back at Astbury Mere there was a fantastic turnout of 210 runners, all eager to start the New Year by improving their health and fitness. It was down to the ladies to demonstrate how new personal best times should be run with Elaine Wood, Rachel Green and Stella Stilwell all running new best times. The rest of the results were as follows:

20:15 Martin Coleman
20:35 Nick Hogan
20:56 Andy Thomas
21:39 Chris Pugh
24:12 Francis Gilchrist
24:15 Jason Bulley
24:18 Rachel Green
24:19 Terry Coppenhall
24:40 Denis Culloty
24:45 Stella Stilwell
25:47 Matt Wood
25:47 David Parr
27:42 Elaine Wood#
29:53 Eve Roberts

Francis Gilchrist at Congleton parkrun

Meanwhile Michael Escolme travelled up to Oldham to participate in the parkrun at Alexandra Park, located in the Glodwick area of the town. The park was created in response to the Lancashire Cotton Famine of 1861–1865 as an attempt to keep local textile workers employed and is a beautiful space in which to run. Michael completed the three holly laps in 23:57

Mary Chadwick and Michael Escolme at Oldham parkrun

Sandbach Striders are a fun, welcoming and inclusive running club who welcome new members of all abilities. They pride themselves on providing a friendly and supportive atmosphere with an active social scene. If you are looking at improving your health and fitness in 2015 then running is an accessible, affordable and highly effective method of achieving this. Everyone is welcome to run with the Striders for a month with no obligation to join and they will always do their best to support you in the early days of your running programme.