April saw the Gold Coast Marathon Training group or bus as it is better known kick into gear with a massive contingent of Pacers signing up for races over the GCM weekend but an amazing number of first time marathoners. This has seen the popularity of different training sessions spike with 27 Pacers out our last Pacer West interval session. So good to see. The other standout for me has been the array of Pacers getting out and about at races and parkruns up and down the east coast.
We had our usual array of competitions with the mile taking on a new look as an evening group added fast times to the morning crews efforts and taking half the podium. James won the pursuit with his competition seemingly scared off by his amazing PBs in the mile and parkrun 5ks. Numerous parkrun PBs were achieved by Paul G, James, Amanda F, Alana and Trent.
Pacer parkrun tourists were out and about at Ashgrove, Bendigo, Bright, Campbelltown, Casino, Coffs Harbour, Lismore, Main Beach, Menai, Parramatta, Queanbeyan, Rooty Hill, South West Rocks, Stockton, The Entrance, The Ponds, Urunga and Warwick.
Among the celebrations we had Karina’ 100th parkrun at Port Macquarie, Paul’s 50th and Jon’s 200th parkrun. The NewRun Crew came home with a 20 minute pb and an age group win in the half. The Canberra marathon mob had a pb, a first time finishers and 2 equal times. The lone Gold Coaster had an age group win and 30 year pb in the half marathon.
All this happened as the Super Series cranked into overdrive but with Speed Week beginning on Saturday all things could change so we will report on that later.