Prizes motivate runners

ON Sunday, Bungay Black Dog Runners team captain John Wharton organised the annual handicap series of 4x1 mile and 4x200m races around the country lanes of Denton.

With a top prize of £100 gift voucher for the Running Centre (second £60, third £40, fourth £35 and fifth £15), competition was fierce.

In windy but dry conditions new member Rob Donovan from Reydon used his handicap well to accumulate 452 points to finish first with Gavin Cole in second place. David Cook, a MV70+ runner was pleased to finish third, just pipping young Robbie James by two points.

Roland Shaw was a further seven points behind in fifth place followed by Bob Paul, Andrew M Smith, Karen McMorran, Sally Nicholls, Colin Whale, Bruce Rayner, Bob Jack, Kieran McMorran, John White, Neil Thomas, Robin Farrar, Nigel Gilham, Katy James, Michael White, Doreen Whittington and Karen Waters. Kieran was awarded the junior prize of £10.

All the runners and helpers enjoyed drinks and buffet at Roland and Elaine Shaw's house in Homersfield. The club thanked Elaine for all her hard work and John Wharton and his team for the excellent organisation. As a thank you to John, whose birthday is this week, Karen Gedge presented him with a Bungay Black birthday cake.

Ian Taylor was competing in the inaugural Poppy Half Marathon at Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex.

Taylor performed well, lapping many others during his third and fourth circuits to finish 17th out of about 300 runners in 1-30:35. His lap times were: 21:46, 22:50, 23:16 and 22:43. The winning time by comparison was 1-14:59.

Also on Sunday three Black Dogs entered the Stowmarket Scenic seven-mile race.

A total of 336 runners lined up to run an undulating course on a blustery day and, once again, Chris Chorley had a great run to finish in 47:58 in 48th with David Punt running his fastest seven-mile race since 2001 to finish in 53:10 (four seconds off his personal best) in 113th.

Just behind was Bobbie Sauerzapf, finishing in 127th place in a time of 54:04.