The racing week started on Friday this week with the delayed Ickworth Sunset Chase 10K.  A beautiful route around Ickworth House that sees participants finishing in the dark; slightly challenging for idiots that forget to charge their torches and finish stumbling in the dark. The only blues present were me (Leoni), Alison Clarke and Michelle Auer who finished in 1:00:45, 1:04:45 and 1:07:20 respectively.

On Saturday a few of our XC lovers took part in the XC relays at Weald. Both our male and female teams did us proud with the ladies coming in 9th out of 24 and the men 16th out of 36. This was the first outing for newbies Paul Brazier and Josh Beaumont and we look forward to seeing more of their exploits over the coming months.

On Sunday some of us took on the somewhat hilly Maldon Half Marathon. Grainne led the way in 1:55:53 and was closely followed by newbie Matthew Stuart in 1:56:22, Charlotte Mills completed her first half marathon in 2:19:22 despite a lack of training and Larina very proudly supported her daughter to the finish in 2:48:16.

Alison Clarke was surprisingly the sole Bentley representative at the Roman Rivers runs. These are beautiful trail routes around the lovely countryside of Layer Marney. They offer 10k, HM and Marathon options; I think its probably safe to say that Alison was glad she’d opted for the 10K.

Sunday also saw a few of us take on the Mayflower Trail Challenge. This is a 13.1 mile walk or run organised by the Rotary club of Manningtree. Unfortunately my detective skills aren’t up to much this week and I couldn’t find the results or a full list of who took part.

Alan Johnson took on Berlin Marathon, completing the world majors route in 5:28:27 – Well Done! Whilst they aren’t technically a member anymore, I also felt that Steve Black deserves a mention for getting round in 5:32:01 despite being tripped by another runner halfway, receiving medical attention and having an awful 2nd half.

Another runner who wanted a challenge in another country was Adam Toyne who took on the difficult La Sagre Skyrace in 8:31:50.

And last for the races but definitely not least were Michelle Auer and Claire Poole, who took on their second Swimrun event at Grafham water. Despite some last minute course changes they both thoroughly enjoyed the 21K route.

You’d think with all that racing there wouldn’t be much time for parkrun – You are wrong! The full results are here – https://www.parkrun.com/results/consolidatedclub/?clubNum=1475 but here are some of the highlights and there were many this week.

The Clacton Crew took a jaunt to Ipswich parkrun.

Whilst the Clacton Crew were at Ipswich, Larina was achieving a new PB of 28:03 at Clacton. Emma Wakeling and son Brody were also at Clacton this week finishing in 33:16, despite Brody running 2/3 of it without his shoes. I’m pretty sure we’ve all been there, generally after consuming copious amounts of alcohol though ….

Well I’ve certainly been made to eat my words this week, after encouraging you all to give us more to write about in my last report. I’m sorry if I’ve missed anything, this week has been incredibly busy with so much Facebook activity, which is great to see. It’s great to see what you’ve all achieved and don’t forget to share all of your achievements in the pinned post. Us race reporters love you for it!

Have a good week everyone!