Glading joins the 100 club with a nice Havant parkrun outing

Ian Glading completed his 100th parkrun at Havant on Saturday

It was the perfect way to celebrate joining the 100 club and his record includes 37 runs at Queen Elizabeth, 32 at Havant, 26 at Southsea, three at Kingson, and one at Bedfont Lakes, in Middlesex.

The tally also includes a very memorable trip to Rietvlei parkrun, JHB South, in South Africa.

On Saturday his 100th run was announced by run director Howard Clark before the start at 9am.

City of Portsmouth’s talented young athlete Jacob O’Hara finished first.

He blazed away early on and led home the runners in 17min 07sec.

His time gave him an impressive age grade score of 81.30 per cent for the junior male 15-to-17 age group.

Hannah Lowry finished first lady with a time of 23.20.

Amazingly, David Lown finished in 22nd position (also 22nd male) with a time of 22.22 on a day with 222 finishers.

Lown is a member of Havant-based club Victory.

He has completed 68 parkruns in total.

Youngster Lewis Holman also celebrated a big milestone on Saturday.

The junior male-10 category runner finished his 50th parkrun.

The current standing in the women’s annual points competition are Zoe Gill with 391 points, Julie Strutt with 363 points and Angela Williams with 341 points.

In the men’s annual points competition Roger Jones (Denmead Striders) has 393 points, Matt Gill has 386 points and Alexander Hall has 320 points.

On Saturday, Roger Jones (VM60-64) was graded 79.20 per cent for the time 20.26 (eighth overall).

Eddy Purser (JM10) was graded 76.31 per cent for the time 20.41 (ninth overall).

This week there were 222 runners, of whom 19 were first timers and 40 recorded new personal bests.

Representatives of 22 different athletics clubs took part.

Havant parkrun started on June 16, 2012.

Since then 4,777 different runners, including participants from 315 athletics clubs, have completed 36,917 runs covering a total distance of 184,585 km.

There have been 6,983 new personal bests.

The age grade course record is held by Jane Harrop, who recorded an 88.74 per cent run (20.08) on June 4, this year (event number 209).

Havant parkrun is on every Saturday at 9am.

It is run in Staunton Country Park, Middle Park Way, Havant PO9 5HB.

The course is a short first lap around the field, followed by two longer loops.

There is enough of a hill towards the end of the bigger loop to provide a testing challenge especially going up it twice.

On Saturday it was also a little bit muddy and wet in some sections of the lower parts of the course.

If you would like to take part in Havant parkrun or volunteer to help the event organisers see the website parkrun.org.uk/havant