Analysis of 2017 finishers

Fri, 23 Jun 2017

• 127 walkers completed the full distance
• 72 were previous finishers, of whom 33 set personal best times
• 55 first-time finishers
• 11.4% of walkers reaching Santon completed the full distance

Number of previous finishers: 72

Male: 43

Female: 29

Number of first time finishers: 55

Female: 35

Male: 20

The 2017 Manx Telecom Parish Walk will live long in the memory for being one of the hottest Parish Walks in history, which was undoubtedly one of the factors for there being a lower percentage of finishers than we have seen in most previous years.

Record percentage of female finishers

63 of the finishers were men, 64 women. This represents the largest ever percentage of ladies (50.4%) finishing the full distance, beating the previous best of 36.8% which, strangely, was identical in both 2016 and 2015. The highest number of female finishers was 76 in 2013, but in that year conditions were much more benign and a total of 215 people completed the full 85 miles, which is still the highest number ever recorded.

Previous finishers

72 of the 127 finishers, or 56.7%, had finished before.

Pete Miller made the biggest improvement, taking an incredible 5 hours and 29 seconds off his previous personal best and claiming a gold award for a sub-18 hour performance by crossing the line in 17 hours 58 minutes exactly, in a fine 6th place. Pete’s only previous finish was in 2013 and he got to Lezayre in 2015 but in the interim he has completed three ‘Centurion’ walks (100 miles in 24 hours), one in Castletown in August 2015, one in Scheidam, Netherlands in May 2016 and the other being the inaugural South African Centurion around Robben Island in Autumn 2016.

Other walkers to set huge personal bests were:

• Michael Osborne, who lopped a massive 3 hours 25 minutes and 59 seconds off his debut finish from last year, finishing 14th in 18:56:21;
• Robin Crellin, who finished 22nd and improved his time by 2 hours 45 minutes and 6 seconds to 19:46:38; and
• Kevin Edwards, who finished in 8th place in a time of 18:14:39, which represented an improvement of 2:38:48.
• First time finishers

Top 3 first time finishers (male):

Top 3 first time finishers (female):

Almost two-thirds of those finishing for the first time were ladies (35 out of a total of 55).

The fastest first-time finisher was Aaron Kneale, who finished 6th in his first competitive walking event (last year’s Ramsey Bakery End to End Walk) and who had trained hard for the Parish Walk. Aaron claimed joint 19th place in a time of 19:29:16, teaming up with multiple finisher Jayne Farquhar shortly after Maughold and walking the rest of the way with her.

Silvia Moschen was the fastest lady finishing for the first time, crossing the line in a fine 23rd place in 20:26:11.

The second and third fastest ladies to finish for the first time, Lucy Titley and Heather Melvin, were in esteemed company for the duration of the walk. Both walked virtually every step of the way with previous finishers who have gone under 17 hours for the full distance – 16-time finisher Andrew Titley in Lucy’s case, and 3-time finisher Tom Melvin in Heather’s case. Heather and Tom were also in company with Lawrence Dyer who was the third fastest male to complete the course for the first time and who also claimed the Merit Award at Tuesday’s prize-giving ceremony.

The second-fastest man to finish for the first time, Glenn Faragher, set a steady and consistent pace and finished in a very credible 24th place in 20:28:55. This is particularly impressive given that, according to the database, this was Glenn’s first entry in the Parish Walk.

Finishers’ analysis

Here is a table showing every finisher, their position and their time, with details of their PB improvements where applicable.

Unfortunately I cannot locate a previous finishing time for Colette Johnston, who finished joint 100th. Colette was listed in the programme as a previous finisher but the database doesn’t reveal her time. If anyone has this information please send a private message on the Parish Walk Facebook page and I will amend the table. Likewise if you spot any errors with the data, please let me know!

Many congratulations to everyone who finished the event in such difficult conditions.

I’ll be back over the weekend with some more (hopefully interesting) analysis focusing on some particular individual performances.