The August winner of the coveted Richmond parkrun Monthly Sweatshop prize is Dzintars Gavars. The prize is awarded to the athlete who has shown long term dedication as well as consistency and improvement over the month.

Dzintars first discovered Richmond parkrun back in April this year and in the past 5 months has run 18 times only missing a couple of weekends. Dzintars has consistently improved, week on week setting 13 PBs out of his 18 runs, gradually chipping away at his time. This is one of the most impressive ratios of PBs to runs I have ever seen. In August alone, out of his 4 runs he achieved 3 PBs, taking almost 1 minute off his 5km time. In total Dzintars has taken a huge 10 mins and 45 secs off and his current PB is 25.52. I suspect if recent performance is anything to go by, there are many more improvements still to come – there is absolutely no stopping Dzintars! What an excellent example to other runners of what can be achieved with some consistency and hard work.

We'd like to thank Hugh Brasher of Sweatshop for his generosity and to congratulate Dzintars on his achievement. His prize is a new pair of running shoes fitted at the Teddington Sweatshop.

They’re trying to break us up at parkrun HQ I’m convinced of it.  I decided to try out our newest neighbour over at the Old Deer Park on Saturday and I can’t be the only one who can actually make my way to Richmond parkrun by going through the Old Deer Park.  Is it any better?  I’ll let you decide - it’s certainly flatter and, having three laps, has more support round the course as you pass the volunteers on multiple occasions.  I didn’t try their cafe, but you definitely can’t beat the view from Pembroke Lodge on a clear day.

On to the racing now and Sky’s James Murdoch has been in the news a bit recently firing a series of barbs at his BBC counterparts.  Richmond parkrun’s James Murdoch has clearly been keeping his head down and making constructive use of the school holidays with some race training as he picked up his first parkrun win on Saturday in a pretty impressive 17 second PB to finish comfortably out front in 17:07.  Second place was somewhat harder fought with a close battle between Jose Pfeiffer and James Stott both posting new PBs (by 22 seconds and 10 seconds in their 17th and 3rd parkuns respectively) to finish just 3 seconds apart, Jose leading the charge managing to sneak under 18 minutes in 17:59.

In the ladies race, the juniors again trounced their senrior rivals with junior runners Kate Brown and Joanna Mobed taking first and second in 20:07 and 20:34 respectively with first timer Victoria Hinton leading the charge for the senior runners taking third in 21:10.

In the age graded race, James Murdoch ensured that the juniors swept the board with a very impressive age graded run of 82.86% while John Sheridan (82.53%) and Jacqueline Millett (78.59%) taking secon and third reminded us that there’s life in the old dogs yet......

Enjoy your running!

A total of 158 runners turned out at Richmond Park on what was a distinctly cooler and fresher morning than of late (though funny how warm it seemed by about 3k - I think the second half of the course has its own microclimate!). In first place for the men was Richmond first-timer Graham Hewett (SM20-24) of Dorking & Mole Valley AC, a visitor from Banstead Woods, in a time of 17:49. Second recorded male was Peter Weir (VM45-49) of Ranelagh Harriers in 18:32, running his 50th parkrun, and third Mark Herbert (SM25-29), also a Richmond first-timer who usually runs at Bedfont Lakes, with a time of 18:43. First for the women, and second athlete overall, was Susie Bush (SW30-34) in a time of 17:54; second woman was Lauren Major (JW15-19) with a PB of 21:26, and third was Michelle Davies (SW25-29) of Ranelagh Harriers, another visitor from Bedfont Lakes, with 22:09.

As I arrived at the park a good half-hour before the race I noticed Susie warming up already - maybe this is part of the secret of her success. Susie recorded an age graded time of 82.77%, however she was beaten into second place in today’s age graded competition by first-timer Geoff Anderson (VM60-64) of Newbury AC. Geoff, coming in fourth place for the men, set a new age category record with a time of 18:52 and with this recorded the best age grading of the day - a very impressive 84.98%, the fifth highest recorded at Richmond.

Michelle Davies was amongst the 36 PBs this week. Michelle must enjoy running at Richmond because she’s run a PB each time she has returned. It was a good day for PBs for the vets. Dzintars Gavars (VM60-64) was one of them, although it's more newsworthy when he doesn't get a PB - this week he knocked 34sec off his time which is now 25:55. Patrick White (VM45-49) got his 9th PB in 10 runs and has reduced his time from 27:12 to 22:03. Another vet, Julian Abbott (VM55-59) has recorded 6 PBs since June this year, now standing at 23:05. Finally I'd like to mention Michael Sikora (VM60-64) who is only 5 runs from his 100 and who ran his first PB in over 30 parkruns since June last year - should give us all hope that it's always possible!

While on the subject of PBs, Tim Curry (VM55-59) might be the only parkrunner to complain that he was given too fast a PB back in June, which he feels he'll struggle to better. Unfortunately for Tim there was nothing wrong with the times that week - he just did a very good run, and perhaps now that he's in training for the Great North Run in September (which his family very thoughtfully entered him for) he's in with a chance of improving on it.

There were 22 first timers this week. Four were from the Fraley family, including Alex (JM14) in 24:46, Oscar (JM14) with 26:31, and Sam (JM14) who has just turned 7 years old, in 31:01. Polly (VW40-44) finished in 31:07. As usual we welcome you all to Richmond parkrun - hope you enjoyed it and will return.

Finally today I’d like to mention Philippa Shaw and Rob Kitchen, two of our long established parkunners who have recently become engaged. Philippa and Rob have both completed over 60 runs at Richmond since their first appearance in July 2008, when incidentally they recorded the same time (I’d like to think this is how they met!). This week Philippa was wearing her Tanzanite engagement ring, which is (thank you, Wikipedia) a trichromatic gem found in the mountains of northern Tanzania. When I saw the ring it was very strikingly reflecting the blue of Philippa's (sorry to be so unromantic) Ranelagh Harriers running vest. I'm sure everyone would like to join me in sending them all our best wishes for the future.

Enjoy your running!

We have some extraordinary women runners at Richmond parkrun and today Lucy Hassell, of Thames Hare and Hounds, came in overall first position with a time of 17.59. Lucy has also run at Bushy Park (her best time being 17.22 and overall 9th position) and stalking her further has very impressive half marathon times as well.   Looking back at Richmond records, on 1st August 2009, Susie Bush was the last woman to win overall (there must be something special about the first Saturday in August) in a time of 17.26 - that was Susie 4th overall win.  Back to today, Alison Brownhill of West 4 Harriers came in second for the women with a time of 21.43; while Christine Meek, with a new pb, came in third with a time of 21.53 representing Hillingdon Triathletes.  For the women, club runners triumphed. 

For the men, Chris Bailey representing Highgate Harriers came in overall second (and first for the men) with a time of 18.18; while two ‘unattached’ men, Louis Randall and Tom Hutchings came in overall 3rd and 4th (and 2nd and 3rd for the men) in times of 18.36 and 19.13 respectively.

There were 28 personal bests among those runners who remembered to bring their barcode (there could well have been more among the anonymous runners).  Picking a few out at random:  Julian Richard Abbott recorded his 5th pb in 8 overall runs.  In his first run in June this year he recorded a time of 25.12, today he finished in 23.09.  Rosie Leyden, in her 22nd run, came in 89th with a time of 26.46.  Her first run was in October 2009 where she completed in a time of 31.41.  While Bonnie Wong in her 7th Richmond parkrun finished in a time of 27.56.

In age graded matters Lucy Hasell today received the highest percentage score, however in actual age matters Noah Heron-Brett may have been our youngest runner finishing with a very impressive first time of 29.09.  He runs in the category JM14 but I am told is well under 10.  

Today was also ‘pacing’ day.  I am not sure who is going to walk away with the coveted RG Active Compression Calf Guards but a quick scroll down the results suggests that it may well be Andrew ‘Kew’ ‘does he hide behind a tree’ Brown.  He was pacing for 22.30 and came in at 22.26.  Andrew is becoming a bit of an old hand at pacing and although there were not that many pbs around his pacing time his unfailing words of encouragement and bottomless enthusiasm would have been a huge support.  

Jacqueline has been running with us at Richmond parkrun since October last year, which is only 10 months ago and already she has run 34 Richmond parkruns (37 parkruns in total) and she joined us for all 5 events in July. Jacqueline has seen consistent improvement over this time setting several PBs in her first 6 month . I know more recently Jacqueline has been marathon training, so her focus has been on the long stuff, but she has still maintained her record at Richmond parkrun and her weekly 5km parkrun was part of her regular training schedule. The most astounding thing about Jacqueline’s achievement though is her Age Grading, consistently in the high 70%, her best ever was 81.17% and her PB over our course is a very respectable 22.50. However, Jacqueline is also a regular volunteer at Richmond parkrun and is a very capable member of the PR team, often writing the Race Report as well as taking on other roles too. So well done and thank you for all your help Jacqueline, a very worthy recipient of the prize!

We'd like to thank Hugh Brasher of Sweatshop for his generosity and to congratulate Jacqueline on her achievement. Her prize is a new pair of running shoes fitted at the Teddington Sweatshop.

 We welcomed back both Karen and Dan on Saturday from their recent Ironman exploits both sporting their hard earned t-shirts (and both walking surprisingly normally considering their exertions only 6 days earlier).  Hopefully the file upload works and you should be able to see the photographic evidence of Karen's finishing time of 12:11:55.  Dan also managed to finish in 14:35:18 which, by my reckoning with a start time of 7am, ensured he just about finished before light fell, but just finishing 226 km of running, cycling and swimming is a pretty amazing achievement.....

On to the racing and not that she really needs it, but the race at the weekend saw a somewhat disputed victory for Anna Critchlow benefitting as she did from course record holder, Suzie Bush, turning up without a barcode.  Poor old Suzie was classified an unknown gent thereby giving Anna her 27th victory........

Two major milestones reached at the weekend included the joining of the 100 Club for Amanda Birkinshaw and Clive Lester.  Clive becomes the first (as far as I am aware) runner to run 100 Richmond parkruns being a Richmond parkrun monogamist while Amanda isn't far behind with just one run elsewhere (although her record is a little confusing when you click on her name as parkrun only record 99 runs to her name).  Also joining one of the parkrun clubs (the 50 Club) was Fred Croft with 48 of these coming at Richmond.

Now for the stats:

Two unknown athletes ran in to the top three with an impressive winning time by one of the unknowns of 16:16.  James Christopher FLOOD (SM30-34) of Stragglers managed to hold off the unknown third placed runner in a time of 17:04.

In her 42nd appearance, Anna CRITCHLOW (VW40-44) of West 4 Harriers won in a time of 18:55 for the 37th time. Anna CRITCHLOW beat Antonia BURT (SW30-34) representing Thames Hare & Hounds by 31 seconds recording 19:26 in the process. Natalie MIDDLETON, (SW25-29) of Ranelagh Harriers placed third in a time of 20:52.

In today's Age Graded competition, Anna CRITCHLOW recorded a performance of 82.20%

In the points competition Ben CARTER has a lead of 131 points over second placed Connor PATTERSON. Jacqueline MILLETT leads Sally WOODWARD GENTLE by 410 in the ladies competition.

This week there were 24 first timers.

26 runners recorded PBs, bringing the total number since the Richmond Park started to 3914. In this time, 3573 runners from 173 different clubs have completed the race 16860 times covering a distance of 84300 kilometers.

The male course record is held by Daniel AGUSTUS who ran 15:49 on 24/04/10, event #131. The female equivalent is held by Susie BUSH who ran 17:14 on 01/11/08, event #55.