Sladden speeds to third

THE highlight for Bungay Black Dog Runners last weekend was the splendid performance of 15-year-old Marcus Sladden who came third overall in a very wet and windy East Anglian Air Ambulance Runway 5km race on Saturday.

Tibenham airfield is very bleak and there was no shelter from the gale-force northerly winds anywhere. Marcus did very well against some competitive adult runners. Sadly, official times don’t appear to be available despite all participants wearing chip timing. Marcus was followed by Chris Chorley (fourth). Marcus’ brother Kieran was also a finisher as were Philip Neave and Bobbie Sauerzapf.

Bobbie had also run earlier that day in the weekly Gorleston Cliffs 5km Parkrun where Black Dog, John White won the race in 17 minutes 44 seconds. Bobbie was 28th out of the 66 runners in 25:03.

On the following day, she also completed the Dedham 10km which is a lovely run in the Stour Valley. Of the 303 finishers, Chris Chorley was 50th (42:04) and Bobbie was 160th (50:54).

Meanwhile, two Black Dog Runners were involved in marathons last Sunday. Neil Thomas returned to his native Wales to participate in the Wales Marathon in Tenby, Pembrokeshire. Despite the hilly course, Neil was delighted to finish in 4-13 in 98th position, which was eight minutes faster than his last marathon.

For the second week running, Bob Jack managed to beat a cut-off by two and a half minutes. This time it was the 37th Berlin Marathon in Germany. There was torrential rain for the whole race, but large crowds were still out in force.

There is a six hour 15 minute limit for this event, Bob finished in six hours 12 minutes, coming 26,533th out of 40,945 official starters.