BMAF 5k Championships – Battersea Park – Sunday 30th November 2025. Words: Mark Tennyson
The British Masters 5k road championships took place in Battersea Park on Sunday in perfect racing conditions. It is hard to believe that this was the fourth edition of this race at the London venue, after moving in 2022 from Horwich.
The quality and depth of this race has improved year on year and only David Williams (M60-3) collected an individual age group medal for the G’s on this occasion. In an extremely strong age group, Dave had to run a lifetime personal best of 17:12 to take the bronze medal.
Ollie Gosden (M50-5) was the G’s first finisher overall, recording a splendid time of 16:16 to place fifth in the M50 age group, in which three M50’s incredibly recorded sub-16 times.
Despite all of the G’s M35’s recording PB’s the bronze team medallist’s from last year missed out this time. Luke Bishop (M35-9) set a huge PB of 16:37, Joe Atkinson (M35-10) a PB of 16:42 and Phil Purves (M40-23) a PB of 17:44.
The M45’s team of Ollie Gosden, Nick Tearle (M50-11) 16:46 and James Adams (M45-20) in 17:24 won bronze medals.
The M55’s team of Terry Booth (M55-4) 16:57, Dave Williams and Phil Pryke (M55-14) went one better by returning with silver medals. Terry, who had run the previous day at the SEAA Masters XC Champs, narrowly missed the individual bronze medal.
Ian Durrant (M50-36) and Paul Sanderson (M70-7) also ran, recording times of 19:40 and 21:47 respectively.
SEAA Masters XC Championships – Greenford – Saturday 29th November 2025.
The previous day five G’s raced on the muddy 10km course at the South of England Masters cross-country championships at Horsenden Hill, Greenford. In fourteenth place Terry Booth (M55-1) was first home for the G’s to take the M55 gold medal. Terry was closely followed by Ian Acreman (M50-6) and Ian Davies (M50-15) a little further back. These three combined to win silver medals in the M50 team competition.
Lee Lintern (M45-13) & Roger Barr (M45-14) had a close battle in the M40 age group, but unfortunately lacked another teammate to close the 3-to-score team.
It was ‘third time lucky’ for this race, as last season the event at Lloyd Park in Croydon was cancelled due to gale force winds, after the 2023 edition had been cancelled on the day of the event due to excessively muddy conditions.
