The week the blues went to Ekiden

This week it was all about Ekiden Relay Race on Sunday, with just a smattering of parkruns on the Saturday.

But those that did Parkrun certainly did so in style. We had Rob Dyer completing his 100th parkrun at Felixstowe – a fine achievement – well done, Rob!

Isabel Dyer joined him and completed her first adult parkrun and sister Sophia ran off on her own and got a PB of 36 minutes.

And surely breaking some kind of family record of participation at parkrun, it was also a first ever parkrun for Caroline Dyer!

As Rob says, Parkrun on a wedding hangover can’t be beaten!

Martin Owen and Tim Ballard also put in good performances at Harwich, with Tim running a season’s best at 18:12 and second runner home.

Mark Jasper ran his 50th parkrun and Natalie Martin joined him at Clacton by celebrating double that with 100 parkruns.

Scott Young put in some Parkrun tourism and ran Peel Parkrun in 26:09 despite being on the beers the night before. The rest of the results can be found here.

Now onto the event of the year – Ekiden!

For those who have ever wondered, the name ‘Ekiden’ is a Japanese word that has its origins not in athletics, but the postal service. Eki means ‘station’ and Den ‘to communicate’ and refers to the stagecoach passing of letters as footmen passed letters across the country.

And cross the country we certainly did – GBRC together amassed enough miles to have run all the way to Hartlepool with ten teams competing in the 26.2 mile relay.

Our mixed ability teams took 66th, 67th, 70th, 72nd, 75th, 83rd, 84th, 91st, 96th and 99th place.

The Centurions were the winners in our inter-club competition, and Mags-nificent 6 took best name prize.

Massive thank you to the hard work of Lisa Briggs for organising – it’s a huge undertaking and everyone appreciated the hours of admin that these sorts of events require.

Excellent team selections meant there was only 14 minutes between our teams – excellent performances put in by everyone. Special mention to Vicky Presland who was 14th fastest woman for her 10k leg.