Saturday 12th February 2022

The final of this year’s Steel City Striders Parkrun Cup was settled on Saturday morning at Graves parkrun.

Competitors were welcomed by cool weather and a biting wind, but also be a large crowd of Striders there to support the event.

Shifts were swapped, lengthy journeys were undertaken and Scottish ferry crossings were put in jeopardy to ensure that six of the seven finalists made it to the start line. Commiseration to John Walker, who looked really strong throughout the earlier rounds, but had to withdraw earlier this week, due to injury.

The result was always going to be close and in the end we had to wait for the parkrun results to be published, to confirm that Andy Telford had secured the win, with just 13 seconds separating the top three finishers. Congratulations to all the finalists, five of whom took over two minutes off their parkrun time during the competition, and in particular to Andy Telford; here’s hoping you got to Ardrossan in time for your ferry!

Many thanks to all the Striders who participated and supported throughout the five rounds. Special thanks to Neil Schofield for crunching the numbers, and for Richard Pegg for sorting the finalist’s prizes. See you in the autumn for the 2022-3 competition.