Acorn’s Malvern “Half Marathon”

Sunday 1st July 2007

Richard Malin wins a flooded 'half'

Three B&R runners tackled the  Malvern 'not quite' Half Marathon -  the course had to be shortened due to Upton being Under Severn instead of Upon Severn following the excessive June rain.  A rough measurement of the revised course by the organisers, in a car, suggested that it would be about 11.75 miles.  A couple of hours before the race started the weather looked perfect, cloudy, cool, no wind and a light rain.  Then half an hour before the gun went off, the wind picked up and with 15 minutes to go the clouds had cleared to expose the sun you would have expected on the same day as the Timberhonger 10k!  At 10:30 the runners set off a little unhappy not to be running the correct half marathon distance.  After 50 minutes of running in the wind and sun the rain clouds were back with about 15 minutes of heavy rain.

Richard Malin (B&R) finished in 1st place with a time of 1:08:43, almost a minute ahead of second-placed Tom Kenderdine of Kidderminster & Stourport AC (1:09:31).  Calvin Scoltock had a bad run, struggling with the rain and wind between  8 and 11 miles and dropping back about 10 places to finish in 55th place (1:28:06).  Robert Mole completed the B&R runners in a time of 1:29:29 (67th).  499 runners completed the course.  First Lady was Sue Harrison of Leamington C & AC only a couple of minutes behind Richard in 1:10:39 and 4th overall as she was at the recent Arden 9. Most runners felt that the course was longer than the estimated 11.75 miles and probably closer to 12 miles.

Click here for full results of the Malvern “Half”

Click here to see a photo of Richard receiving his prize, click on the link below, then go to page 19 (click on the 19 just above the thumbnails on the right hand side) and scroll down about 10 pictures, there are 3 or 4 of him.   Page 9 has a couple of photos of Richard finishing the race.

Click here to go to pictures

Calvin made up for his poor performance in Malvern by knocking almost minute off his 10k PB at the Rochdale 10k on the following Tuesday, while working away in Manchester.  His previous 10k PB, recorded at this years Dudley Kingswinford 10k, was 41:46, and now at Rochdale on a very undulating course 40:59 - still not sub-40, but getting closer with each race.

Click here for full results of Rochdale 10k

(Calvin Scoltock)