BAC athletes were the winners at both Bournemouth and Poole Parkruns on Saturday 9 August with Paul Hill (again!) leading the field of 216 to the finish in Kings Park and, at Poole, Simon Munro was the first of 547 competitors. In 8th place behind Simon was Steve Way, who was ‘pacing’ 18 minutes to guide anyone wishing to run the course in that time, and helped they were, as Steve‘s time was just 4 seconds adrift, 17.56! This was the start of a busy weekend for Steve, who later the same day ran a 3000m at Kings Park Athletic Track, helping BAC to earn promotion in the British League (see separate article), and the next day won the Salisbury 50k (see below), and all this after achieving a PB, breaking the long-standing marathon V40 record, and finishing 10th, and first Englishman, only two weeks ago in the Commonwealth Games Marathon! Also running at Poole was Graeme Miller, in a time, also, of 17.56 – teamwork?! Following Paul at Bournemouth were Ian White, 5th with a PB, Brandon Meredith, Jud Kirk, Mike Farrell, improving on his first Parkrun the week before, Joe Price, Ian Graham and Samantha Laws.
The next day was the Salisbury 5,4,3,2,1, a combination of off-road races over 50k, 40k, 30k, 20k and 10k, hence the name. The 50k race was won by Steve Way in 3.23.01, in a manner described by Andy Gillespie, also competing, as “at a canter”.  Andy, with one eye on the Dorset Doddle only a week away, was 67th (of 199 finishers) in 5.16.17. The 30k race was a BAC 1, 2, in the form of Peter Thompson as the winner, in 2.15.20, with Jon Sharkey who, like Steve, had helped BAC‘s promotion in the British League the day before (by winning the B string 3000m steeplechase) second in 2.16.00. There were 168 finishers.