It was another busy weekend of racing, so let’s just straight down to business with parkrun. 53 of us “parkran” on Saturday on what was a beautiful, sunny Autumn day. This included parkruns at far-flung locations like York (Richard Moor – 21:07), Bath Skyline (Anna Lyon – 27:48), Stevenage (Bee Harris – 34:00) and Dolgellau (Craig Mitchell and Richard Heath – finishing first and second in 19:19 and 19:49).

In more local parkrun tourism news, Charlie Keitch, Claudia Keitch, Scott Young and Lisa Briggs travelled to Felixstowe, where Charlie was the third finisher, and Martin Owen continued his charge towards entry to Cowell Club (running at 100 different parkrun locations), with South Woodham Ferrers being his 42^nd.

We had a few PBs this week – Don Welsh at Clacton (31:23), Tim Clifton at Markshall (27:35) and Matthew Grant at Harwich (23:11). Bev Shortley was also first in her age category at Clacton (27:23). There were also two PBs at Colchester junior parkrun – Ella Simpson in 08:56 and Rodger Ferguson in 09:59. In other parkrun news, Mike Vincent ran his first parkrun as a GBRC member (welcome, Mike!) and it’s great to see Charlotte Hammond back parkrunning again after the birth of her baby recently.

You can find a full list of on our consolidated club report.

Onto Sunday races, and I think it’s fair to say that conditions were less favourable than the previous day (rain saves you having to shower afterwards though, right?). 6 of our runners took part in the re-arranged Ipswich half marathon: Simon Leggett (1:29:49), Pacian Andrews (1:34:19), Ashley Spooner (1:46:11), Grainne Hallahan (1:51:13 close to a PB!), Donna Harris (2:05:52) and Larina Marsh (2:10:52). Particular congratulations go to Donna who achieved yet another PB over this distance, and certainly deserves a rest after 4 half marathons in 5 weeks!

Meera Rajoo-Oakley was the sole blue at the Thurlow 5 mile race, finishing as the 5^th female in a time of 38:11. Unfortunately, despite a FV35 category being listed at the point of entry, the category turned out not to exist on the day, leaving Meera without any silverware this time.

Along the theme of trophy chaos, Paul and Debs Hollidge completed the Woodchurch 10 mile in 1:20:55 and 1:20:57, with Debs finishing as the third female. Since nobody informed her of this, Debs left without collecting her trophy, but hopefully it will arrive in the post soon. At least we still have a nice picture of them with medals and happy faces!

Tom Komorowski and Mags Komorowska took their poles and headed to Beachy Head for their popular but challenging marathon. It comes recommended by them for the spectacular views, and a mere 3,800ft of elevation required to see them. They finished together in a fantastic time of 5:08:27, and Mags was 50^th out of 450 females. If that wasn’t impressive enough, they finished with double flying feet. This photo definitely sums up all the mixture of finish line emotions perfectly!