This week we have two reports for the price of one (exactly zero pence)! Not because I forgot or anything like that, but because over half of the results from the 15-16th May weekend simply disappeared into the internet ether sometime on Sunday night/Monday morning. It has taken England Athletics almost a week to ‘find’ them again and put them onto the results website. So firstly for the weekend 15th-16th May. No PB’s but 3 first places and a second place made it a good weekend. Mel Walker (5,231 metres) was 1st in the M75 category. Now Mel would (and does) tell everyone that it isn’t a great achievement as he is the only M75 competing, but what he doesn’t point out is that of the 6 male runners (this week) who are over the age of 70, Mel had the 3rd longest distance recorded! Andy Dunleavy (6,890) and Tony Wall (6,584) once again finished 1st and 2nd in their M60 category and with Paul Christie (6,640) winning his M65 group that meant that Burnden had the first 3 finishers in all of the men over the age of 60. Burnden’s other two competitors were Cheryl Dunleavy (3,840) and Trevor Eagle (3,708) who both recorded distances well below their best efforts. Not that there is anything wrong with having easy weeks! The hard part is sometimes realising that an easy week can be very good for you! Team-wise Burnden finished in eighth place.
Last weekend’s report now: - One PB and one first place to report this week. Evergreen superstar Mel Walker ran a new PB this week, setting a new distance of 5,336 metres and again coming 1st in the M75 category. Mel, once again, was only beaten by 2 runners from the M70 category which, when you consider that he is now in his fourth year in the M75 classification, is pretty damn amazing. Tony Wall hit the 7 kilometre marker for the first time since last December, covering a distance of 7,040 metres to claim 2nd place in the M60’s. Finishing in 3rd place in their respective categories were Andy Dunleavy M60 (6,690) and Paul Christie M65 (6,440). Also turning out this week for Burnden were Cheryl Dunleavy (4,180) and Trevor Eagle (3,940) and this sets a strange record for the club as this is the first time that the exact same runners have competed over two consecutive weekends! So come on you other 30 minute runners, where are you? Burnden as a club finished in our highest position for some week’s at 5th place. These positions are worked out as an average of all our runners and this week we finished a massive 1.33 metres in front of Horley Harriers. So every stride counts, keep them coming.
