Dudley Kingswinford 10k

Wednesday 3rd May 2006

As the organisers proudly state, the Midlands biggest mid-week road race was celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year and more than 900 runners ran the 10 km loop from the Dudley Kingswinford rugby club. In recent years the event has been a particular favourite of Bromsgrove-based B&R runners and of course with its unchanged route it is the perfect opportunity to measure the success of training or the ravages of time.

Seven B&R athletes competed this year with Mark Graham (77th in 39-06) and Rowena Bales (149th overall and 4th LV40 in 42-57) being the first of our runners home. Reading through the results on the DK10k website, I didn’t spot any LV45 runners ahead of B&R women’s team captain Ann Stuart (277th in 45-18). However, Grace Hough (262nd in 45-59) from Telford Harriers is listed as the winner in the age category section for both LV45 and LV50 (this is consistent with Mike Hagar being listed as the winner of all the men’s vet categories from MV40 to MV55). All the B&R finishers are listed below:

77 Mark Graham 39-06

149 Rowena Bales 42-57 (4th LV 40)

154 Dave Whipp 43-06

236 Jane Anderson 45-18 (5th LV40)

277 Ann Stuart 46-19 (1st LV45 ?)

316 Roger Beacham 47-26 (8th MV60)

451 David Henley 50-40

The men’ race was dominated by Tipton Harriers who took the first three places. By my reckoning, third-placed Mike Hagar’s time of 32-36 was a new MV55 record for the event. He already holds the records for the MV40, MV45 and MV50 age categories, set in 1994, 1997 and 2003 respectively. The senior men’s record is still the 1987 winning time of 29-40 set by Stourport’s Mark Dalloway. With Tipton Harriers taking second and third places in the women’s race too, it was left to Telford AC’s Claire Martin (24th overall in 35-51) to claim the women’s title for the second year running and to prevent a clean sweep by the green and white vests. B&R readers might be interested to note that Bronwen Cardy still holds the record for women’s vet categories from LV35 to LV45 with a time of 35-03 set in 2000.

Click HERE to go to the DK website to see the results for yourself and as always they have plenty of good quality photographs of the event).

Leading men’s finishers

1 Martin Williams (Tipton) 31.00

2 Patrick Kavanagh (Tipton) 32.24

3 Mike Hagar MV55 (Tipton) 32-36

Leading women’s finishers

24 Claire Martin (Telford) 35-51

33 Emma Phillips (Tipton) 36-47

55 Lynne Cox (Tipton) 38-11

(PA)