An incredible 55 Bournville Harriers members took part in the final race in the Rowheath AC 5km series. Our club was responsible for one third of all participants as we turned out to support Rowheath's well organised race. This is the highest number of runners we’ve ever had in any event (the previous record was 49 at the Midland 6 and 12 stage relays this year).
Dean Parker was first home for the club in 10th place followed by Steve McGlen in 17th and Sean Rose out sprinting Marcus Tillotson in 28th and 29th respectively. Marianne Hensman was the first Lady for the club followed by great performances and new personal bests for Laura Leslie and Caroline Harlan-Marks. All-in-all there was 28 personal best performances which must also be a club record for one event.
Andy Wheeler becomes the first member to achieve the 10 races in order to be in with a chance of winning one of the end-of-series prizes. He actually reached the magical 10 race mark at the previous BvH GP outing, the Killer Mile. His job now is to improve on his best 10 performances which he managed to do by securing 24 points in the BRAC 5km, 2 points better than one of his previous outings. With 20 Men all over 100 points each, the challenge for the top 5 prizes will probably go all the way down to the last race in December.
The Ladies series is even closer with Laura Leslie taking 9 bonus points for a new PB and running faster than the previous BRAC 5km race, to lead the Ladies rankings from Mel James and Linda Howell who are both tied on 231 points. Mel technically is in 2nd place with the most wins in the series even though Linda has collected more bonus points. The rest of the Ladies are close behind which is adding interest and competition to the Series.
The BvH GP Series for both the Men and Ladies are still wide open with potentially 9 more races to go and so there is still plenty of time to get into the top 5 places.
So far there are 123 members who have taken part in the BvH Series and between them nearly 1200 additional bonus points have been awarded.
The next race is the Midland Men’s 6 stage and Ladies 4 stage road relay to be held on Saturday 19th September at Sutton Park and your chance to run for Bournville Harriers in a great team race.
Good luck to everyone.
