Recent News

24th January A few more results have now crept out. In Friday's Dashes in the Dark race it turned out to be a very close race between Graham and Dean with Graham just getting the upper hand. It will be interesting to see what happens in race 2.

Also in action at the weekend was Colin Jones in the Gloucester Marathon. Colin is still returning to full fitness so we shouldn't read too much into his performance in this windy race - but I'm sure Colin's well back on the way to running well.

22nd January Despite a brisk 23 mph wind several of our members enjoyed a run at the Helsby Half Marathon yesterday. Sarah Wilson had most joy recording a new PB (1:40:09) in her first race in 18 months. We are still waiting for all the results but Sarah was joined by Dave Wilson (1:29:44), Kate Waterhouse (2:07:13) and Laura Fisher (1:48 ish).

Results from last weekend's cross country match have now appeared and it looks like we managed to sneak one place up the table despite our short numbers. Now in 6th place, we head Prestatyn by just 4 points so we really need a good turnout at the final race.

20th January A small pack of whippets braved the dark to take part in the first of the Dashes in the Dark series at Llandegla. Race Report.

17th January The cross country season got back under way in bright, frosty conditions at Lilleshall on Saturday. A much depleted team of Whippets showed that they hadn't lost any fitness over the Winter break.

Club positions were:

23 Graham Jones
65 Colin Jones
72 Dean Richards
91 Simon Phillips

The next and final fixture is on the 4th February at Oswestry

12th January There's not been much happening since the start of the New Year. However, New Year's day saw a group of us run round Brown Moss in lovely spring weather!

As to racing, Sunday the 8th saw Heather Steward set the first result of 2012 with a 52:26 clocking in the Plymouth Roundtable 10k.

This weekend sees the 4th race in the North Wales XC league at Lilleshall.

28th December Another few results from the 27th have emerged. Brian Hickson, Laura Fisher and Jon Morgan were all in action at Wheaton Aston in a fast 10k. Brian recorded a new PB of 41:19 while Jon ran his best 10k of the year.

27th December Graham Jones set a new club 5k record in spring-like weather in the Seven Loop 5k at Shrewsbury. The course was certainly fast and mainly flat. John and Fiona Dillon also found the course to their liking as both set age records. John was 1st in his age category and Fiona 3rd in hers. They were joined by Dean Richards recovering from illness and Gillian Fowles who was recovering from mince pies! I've now added 5k records to the Stats page.

26th December A select bunch of Whippets assembled for a traditional boxing day run round Brown Moss. For the record the attendees were: Simon Parsons, Alison Birch, Sarah Wilson, Laura Fisher, Mel Oulton,Mark Bridgewater, Mark Gregory, John Dillon, and Dean Richards. It was great to see Mark Bridgewater over from Switzerland and Mel from Bronnington. A drink or three in the White Bear followed the run.

18th December Only one race to report on from the weekend - the Telford 10k. Just four Whippets in action - but it was great to see Sarah Wilson back racing. Sarah jumped into 3rd place in the ladies rankings with a 45:12 clocking. However, best run of the day came from Dean Richards who ran 39:40 to record a new PB. Sarah and Dean were joined by Colin Jones and Daren Peacock.

12th December It looks like it was a quiet weekend with just one race to report: Mortimer Forest 10 Mile Hill Race.

In other news, we have added two more qualifying races to the club championship series because of the clash between the Market Drayton 10k and the Chester Half Marathon. The Air Products 10k and the Ellesmere Half Marathon are now on the list - giving you even more choice!

6th December Club Championship standings now posted. Championship Standings.

4th December A good twenty-plus whippets assembled on the start line for the Helena Tipping 10k. There were age records for John Dillon and Christine Henderson. Helena Tipping 10k.

28th November It looks like it was a fairly quiet weekend with Bob Wilson running the 5k Hanley Park Run and a group taking part in the Stiperstone Time Trial. Brian Hickson's full report says it all! Stiperstone Time Trial.

21st November Two groups were in action yesterday as far as I can see. A group of five tackled the Cony Half Marathon enjoying the views from the Great Orme while another four ran the 'flat' (my mistaken belief last year) 10k that is Cannock chase! In action at Conwy were Ken and Helen Robbins, Kate Waterhouse, Teresa Macleod and Christine Henderson. Sara Rogers turned up to watch and cycle round a bit. Ken was first home in 2:02:37.

At Cannock the group of four were led home by Brian Hickson in 40th place in 44:42. Brian and Laura were joined by Garry and Lynn Norton. Lynn broke 60 minutes with a great run in 58:56. It appears to be the only race result I have recorded for Lynn - so it's great to see her racing.

19th November Results from the Northop Cross country fixture have now been published and show that the club finished fifth on the day. Sadly, despite the great result we have slipped slightly further behind Prestatyn. We did however gain on Denbigh and both clubs are still within reach over the final two fixtures. League Table. The next league race is on the 14th January at Lilleshall.

12th November A good sized team of Whippets travelled over to Northop for round 3 in the North Wales XC League. The weather was fantastic and the new course a true challenge. Graham Jones was first home with the team packing well. Colin made life difficult for himself by removing a shoe on the last lap but is clearly getting back into shape. Our positions were:

21 Graham Jones
54 Rob Sharam
72 Dean Richards
80 Jeff Clarke
96 Brian Hickson
97 Colin Jones
100 Simon Phillips
116 Dave Wilson

11th November Our Birthday celebration took place on Friday at the Archie, and good fun it was too. Read more here.

7th November A total of 9 Whippets have entered the Club Ballot for London Marathon places. For the record, they are:

Fiona Challinor, Keith Cotton, Jon Morgan, Rob Sharam, Dean Richards, John Eversfield, Graham Jones, Richard Stewart and Heather Stewart

6th November A very varied weekend of racing with Whippets racing over distances from 5 miles to the Marathon! In Plymouth, Heather Stewart recorded her best 10k of the year to show she is back on form after injury. Nearer home, Lee Bateson, James Rainbow and John Rowlands all ran the Mad Jack's 5 miler in scenic Attingham Park. Lee was first man home.

Dave Wilson finished the last race in the 20 race NSRAA series - the Flying Fox 10 miler in Stone. Dave was accompanied by Brian and Laura. Read more here.

Perhaps the most interesting race of the day was the 105 lap Crewe Track Marathon. Juliet Salem put her Chester Marathon debut behind her and sneaked over to Crewe to take part in a very unique Marathon. Rather her than me!Juliet reports that she finished in a time of 4:29. We are both waiting to see the official results as Juliet thinks she completed too many laps! Read more here.

5th November Just been having a look at original members back from 2008. The table below shows all of our current members who joined before March 2008. How many do you know?

Adele Minshall	Ken Robbins
Alison Birch	Mandy Lewis
Andrew Corbett	Michael John Rowlands
Emma Edge	Neil Spencer
Helen Robbins	Rachael Foster
Jeff Clarke	Robert Sharam
Jen Spencer	Sara Rogers
John Hopwood	Sean Evanson
Jonathan Morgan	Simon Parsons
Keith Cotton	Richard Stewart

2nd November Also in action at the weekend in the Hellraiser 1 mile fun run were Laura's niece and nephew, Brooke and Myles - two future Whippets? Laura writes:

We arrived early in order to make sure the twins were able to get into their costumes and limber up! They were very interested in the physio beds and stated they would have poorly legs after their run! We walked to the start line and I was informed 'auntie blob, we are going to win!' so I knew the pressure was on. The race started and we began the mile course with a hill! Both twins ran as fast as they could followed closely by auntie blob and her rucksack containing the emergency potty!!!!! After a few minutes Brooke was 'tired out' and wanted to be 'up, up' so the race then continued with Myles running and auntie blob running with aforementioned rucksack and now carrying Brooke. After her little rest Brooke decided she could now run again so down she went and off we all ran again. This continued for the rest of the race (Myles ran for the entire 1 mile course). Towards the end both twins were flagging and myles reported 'sore feet' so auntie blob provided encouragement by offering to buy them a cake if they ran across the finish line! It worked and we finally crossed the line all together at 18mins 6seconds. After a quick drink and stretch we collected their goodie bags (which included a toffee apple, chocolate biscuits, happy meal toy, ball, magazine, Halloween style pen and chocolate balls!!!!) and set off to get the promised cake (and a much needed coffee and sit down for auntie blob!)

1st November Results have now appeared from the weekend where Whippets were in action in Nantwich and Telford. John Dillon made a quiet return to racing in the Fireworks 5 at Telford where he was a very creditable 16th. John was joined by ever improving Fiona Dillon and Gilliam Fowles. Over in Nantwich, Brian Hickson, Dave Wilson and Colin Jones romped round the Halloween Hellraiser. Brian just getting the nod over Dave at the Finish - or did Dave think they crossed the line together?

31st October Results from the Llandudno Cross Country fixture have now been published and our men's team are holding steady in 7th place. We've lost a little ground on main rivals Denbigh but are just 30 points behind 6th place team Prestatyn. The next fixture is on November the 12th.

24th October Our men's cross country team was down by the seaside again (almost) on Saturday for the second fixture of the season at St David's College, Llandudno. This was a new venue for this year with a good mix of fields, pitches and woods. But something tells me we may not be going back there next year as the fixture rather disrupted a wedding party trying to go up the narrow road we were all trying to go back down!

The number of runners was 50% up on the first fixture so although our placings look down they may well be quite good. It was great to see Jeff Clarke back in action but a shame that we still haven't managed to field a ladies team. Oh well, the next fixture is closer to home so come on girls - you can't all hate mud! Running can even be quite educational - Brian Hickson learnt that four pints of strong lager the night before is not ideal carbo loading! Anyway, for the record our placings were:

35 Graham Jones
67 Rob Sharam
95 Jeff Clarke
99 Dean Richards
112 Simon Phillips
117 Colin Jones
141 Brian Hickson

18th October A very quiet weekend and so far I'm only aware of results for Richard and Heather Stewart who ran the Cardiff Half Marathon. Richard writes:

Heather, and myself, ran in the Cardiff Half Marathon, yesterday, with Heather travelling up from Plymouth and meeting us in Cardiff. Neither of us had a good race, and found it tough due to lack of training miles, due to injuries over the past few months, but as we’d registered for this race last year, we thought we would attempt it. I finished in 1:46:30 and Heather in 2:09:12, and we were both disappointed with our times. However, we have no after affects, and the physiotherapy sessions we’re going through seem to be helping, so we’ve agreed to keep our training going through the winter.

12th October Thirty whippets and partners sat down for a curry at the Taj Mahal last night - and very good it was too. Definitely recommended for more visits.

Entry for the ballot for club marathon places is now open. To qualify for a place in the ballot you must:

1: Have applied for a place in the 2012 London marathon and been rejected by Virgin.
2: Have been a club member at the time you applied for a Marathon place
3. Pay your subs for 2012 before the ballot.

The ballot will take place at the Birthday Bash - however, there is a chance we may not know exactly how many club places are available. At this moment we are assuming we will receive 3 places again.

Nominations for Club Awards can now be found on the Social page. Handicap placings are not shown - in case you have forgotten the final handicap places were:

1. James Rainbow
2. Gillian Fowles
3. Jo Meadowcroft

10th October Also in action on Sunday were Linda Callaghan in the massed Royal Parks Half Marathon and Teresa MaCleod and John Rowlands in the Congleton Half. If you ran somewhere and I haven't noticed please let me know!

10th October Be one of the first to cross the Olympic finishing line in the Olympic stadium! The National Lottery is organising a 5 mile race in the Olympic Park on 31st March. The race finishes in the Olympic stadium. Entries are by ballot that closes on 27th October. Entry price includes 2 free olympic stadium tickets - I wouldn't like to guess for what days or events though! Thanks to Keith Cotton for spotting this one.

see Olympic Park Run

9th October After all the injury problems it was great to see nine Whippets completing the Chester Marathon. A very succesful race for all concerned with age records for Fiona Challinor, Adele Minshall, Christine Henderson and Daren Peacock. Rob Sharam not only set an age record but a new club record shaving more than two minutes off Dave Wilson's record time. Laura Fisher was the club's first lady home. Well done to all, now take a well deserved rest.

3rd October Brian Hickson escaped cross country duties by going for a walk (is that allowed?). He writes:

Just thought I would let you know that I competed in the Longmynd Hike over the weekend. The hike follows a set figure-of-eight route over the rugged countryside of South Shropshire and the Welsh Marches, with about 8,000 feet of climbing covering eight summits. We set of in the sweltering heat at 1pm on Saturday and by 6pm which was 22 miles in, one of the guys I was walking with collapsed through heat stroke and dehydration, after 15 minutes the decision was made to carry on with just the two of us. Luckily the sun was setting and the temperature dropped for the final 28 miles. We carried on running and walking through the darkness and eventually finished at 01.49am finishing in a time of 12hrs 49mins which is a PB for me by 11 minutes. I need to wait for the results to be posted but think we came around 36th overall out of about 450 starters, I am not sure how many actually finished because the heat took its toll on many of the front runners as well as the field in general, many of them packed in well before the half way mark.

So all in all a really good run/walk and am really pleased with my time, my feet are in a bit of a mess with blisters of which I blame the heat but that’s all part of the event. I am taking names for next year’s event if anyone is interested let me know, Dean I have all ready got your name down so no need to contact me!!! (Ed:Not if it clashes with the Cross country you won't!)

1st October What's with the first race of the cross country season? Yet again it was unseasonably hot - even in Bangor! Anyway, we just managed to scrape a men's team together, things were that bad that I had to run! Our team was made up of Graham Jones (20th), Rob Sharam (52), Dean Richards(83), Simon Phillips (84), Colin Jones (105) and Simon Parsons (118). Graham had an excellent race to finish in 20th place. Dean cruelly outsprinted Simon Phillips to pip him by 1 place. Rob and Colin are only just getting back into shape and I made up the numbers. Sadly, due to next week's Chester Marathon we couldn't field a women's team. Hopefully we'll get things sorted for the next fixture on the 22nd October at Llandudno.

Older news stories have been moved to the News Archive