Wow – what a week with the most important race in the annual calendar taking place and one of our members taking on the biggest challenge of his life in the name of charity. I feel privileged to be writing up the report!

Before we get on to the big ticket items let’s start with the usual parkrun lowdown.

51 of you hit one of 12 courses at 9 AM last Saturday and here are a few of the notable and unusual highlights:

Top 10 finishers included Rob Blackman at Bury St Edmunds (19.26) and 6^th place, Mark Jasper ending his winning streak and coming in 2^nd at Clacton Seafront (18.18) with the incredible Sam Plummer claiming a new course record (16.06). Both the Hollidge’s notched up top 10 places with parkrun tourism at Flegg High. This course saw only 33 runners and they both finished in 24.25 and Debs was 2^nd female home. Two of our club took 3^rd place in their respective outings, Chris Warriner (19.17) at Markshall Estate and Paul Connell (21.14) at South Woodham Ferrers.

More parkrun tourism was experienced with Caroline Searle enjoying her birthday celebrations at Princes parkrun, Liverpool (30.41) – belated birthday tidings! Matthew Grant (23.47) at Hove Prom, David Wright (19.51) at Lowestoft and Bee Harris (32.26) at Victoria Dock. All club parkrun results can be accessed here.

Now I have to mention Highwoods parkrun as it was definitely the place to be with 16 of you running or walking it and many more marshalling to help support the legend that is Paul Davison. This crazy chap thought he’d run his 6^th marathon in as many days as a parkrun sandwich and well, who needs a flat course after roughly 143 miles in the legs? Two top ten placers for the club were Charlie Keitch in 5th (20.24) and Danny Draper in 9^th (22.19).

This leads me to talk about Paul’s incredible feat in more detail – who, not satisfied or challenged by just one marathon anymore, decided to run the London Marathon as his 7^th 26.2 mile achievement in as many days. Now, to be this bonkers you need a reason, right? His was the St Helena’s Hospice and not only has he raised a fantastic amount for them, he has also given their great work the press it deserves with his antics being covered via the Colchester Gazette and it even resulted in him (and our very own Tim Clifton who is equally crazy having run for over 900 consecutive days)  being televised on Look East! Paul’s first 5 outings started at St Helena hospice, and he ran to the following:

Day 1 @ Hospice shop, Halstead, Day 2 @ Hospice shop, Clacton, Day 3 @ Hospice shop, Frinton, Day 4 @ Hospice shop, Dovercourt and Day 5 @ Hospice shop, Brightlingsea. On day 6, following his ‘warm up’ half marathon and then Highwoods parkrun he headed to the Northern Gateway sports park to finish with laps around the park area. The club showed our camaraderie over the week with so many of you joining Paul at various stages to cheer or run alongside him, enabling this machine to complete every single one in less than 4 hours! I must say that man would do anything to get runner of the month!!!

This gives me a natural segway to write about the main event; the TCS London Marathon. This year saw 12 of us (and by us I am including myself – having achieved a life-long ambition with a cupboard full of ballot loser running tops to show the desire!) take on the ’26.2’ mile course. Many of us clocked up over 27 miles – me too (I blame the kids who lined up on the far side of the course high fiving – they made me go wide)! On a positive we can now count this as an ultra, right? The dream team was made up of the following:   

Kathy Bishop (03:53:11) ran the course with Fraser Lewis (03:53:30), Tim Clifton (04:58:17), the Legend Paul Davison alongside his incredible wife Sarah spurring him on both in (03:58:06), Leoni Harvey who had questioned her fitness coming up to the big day put on a stonking effort (05:04:25), Alan Johnson was nipping at her toes (05:06:24), Robert Lee (04:33:54), Helene Tyler (05:52:27), little old me (05:40:50), Neil Winters (04:13) and Daniel Whymark (04:21:48).

Everyone did incredibly well but I do want to put a shout out to Helene and myself – we had both been forced to defer places we had earned due to our battles with cancer, major surgery and treatment, significantly affecting our fitness. We both jeffed the course and our proud of our achievements. I had fought a personal mind battle leading up to the event – still thinking I was going to pull out until 2 weeks before the day. I’m so glad I made the call to participate after all as it was an amazing experience; so well organised, supported and we didn’t get the predicted rain. It was hard, of course it was – I thought I’d get to 13 miles before needing to jeff but this turned out to be much earlier at 7 miles. You know what? It doesn’t matter – I ran in pink, during Breast Cancer Awareness month and raised a nice sum for BRA (Breast Reconstruction Awareness) a small part of NHS Mid and South Essex Hospitals. The wall was very much felt at 20ish miles but I popped a couple of paracetemols and come 23 miles had a second wind. It was lovely to see my kids and parents at mile 18 (which turned out to be mile 19 for me) and in the Mall.

As well as St Helena’s Hospice and BRA I’d like to give a shout out to the other charities GBRC runners raised money for (sorry if I’ve missed any) Children’s Liver Disease Foundation, National Autistic Society and also to give a mention to Larina’s daughter who ran for British Heart Foundation.

I’m straight back in that ballot and it closes at midnight today for all those of you humming and arhing – just enter – if we can achieve all this as a club then so can you! You also don’t have a long to time to wait to find out…you will be put out of your misery by the end of October.

Emma Wakeling