Tom Cully leads the field home as over 200 take on the latest Brockenhurst parkrun
AFTER the recent wet weekends, 215 parkrunners took on the Brockenhurst course, running, jogging or walking in dry and sunny conditions on Saturday morning.
The quickest on the day was Southampton AC’s M25 Tom Cully, who led the field home in 17:53 on his first run at Brockenhurst. Cully has run 72 parkruns, and has a superb personal best of 15:44 set on the flatter Poole course.
The second runner across the line was another first-time visitor, M30 Oliver Peppiatt from Hackney Marshes, who ran 19:09 with Brockenhurst regular M20 Matt Roseveare 18 seconds behind in third place.
The first woman for the 15th time was W40 Gemma Russhard of Lymington Triathlon Club. Russhard ran 21:01 on her 193rd park run, with Fiona de Mauny coming second and Hardley Runners’ Hannah Smith in third.
A familiar face topped the Age Grade scoring charts for the second week in a row, with Exbury-based Barbara Walton, who has competed at international level in triathlon and biathlon for Great Britain, slightly ahead of clubmate W65 Jane Hodge.
Finally, in the junior section, Harry Brown celebrated his 25th parkrun by leading the boys home, while Alice Pegram was the fastest girl with a new personal best.
Christchurch Runners’ M75 Graeme Stringer was among the highest-placed runners on the most parkruns table with 444, with 153 at Lymington.
There were 56 Brockenhurst first-timers, while seven ran their first-ever parkrun. They were M45 Richard Knott, M25 Luke Hammond, M35 William Farmer, W35 Lauren Farmer, M55 Steve Tuck, M40 Geoff Carr and M45 Jay Tee.
The organisers thanked the 22 volunteers who made the event possible. They were Katy Hughes, Peter Reilly, Mick Anglim, Ellie Monks, Alan Horswell, Katrin Pritchard, Mike Smith, Yvonne Paddy, Graham Paddy, Andrew Richards, Mike Bruce-Burgess, Andrew Mason, Peter Stoddard, Jean Wright, Victoria Miller, Eloise Knight, Vivienne Baxter, Hilary Bruce-Burgess, Barbara Walton, Eloise Edgar, Gaye Andrews, and Sophie Linford.
Results: 1, Tom Cully, 17:53; 2, Oliver Peppiatt, 19:09; 3, Matt Roseveare, 19:27; 4, Andy Chase (New Forest Runners), 19:40; 5, David Morrison, 19:50; Paul Cockburn, 20:23; 7, George Cook, 20:33; 8, Edward Slater, 20:34; 9, Mark Sampson, 20:45; 10, Henry Cox, 20:50.
