This festive season has just flown by and it’s hard to believe 2023 is upon us. Well done to those of you who have kept up your training this month and continued to get out there despite some undesirable weather, and wishing a speedy recovery to the many who have been struck down by seasonal bugs and injuries. Either way, I hope you all managed to enjoy some jolly celebrations with friends and family.

News and Notices

Awards Night

Thank you to everyone who attended our annual Awards Night in December and made it such an enjoyable occasion. Special thanks to the organisers, whose hard work ensured the success of the event itself, as well as the post-awards run the next morning.

Congratulations to all our ladies who won awards (listed below) and/or received club champs for the year.

• Female Newcomer – Louise Balfour
• Michael Sommerlad Trophy – Alison Clarke
• Geoff Day – female – Magdalena Komorowska
• ‘I trailed them all’ – female – Vicky Presland
• Mickey Edwards – Natalie Martin
• Best Performance – female – Kathy Bishop, London marathon
• Most Improved Female – Lisa Briggs
• Female Runner of the Year – Lisa Briggs
• Female Vet – Magdalena Komorowska

Congratulations also to Kathy Bishop and Caroline Talbot whose names were drawn to receive the club’s London marathon places for 2023. We’re rooting for you ladies!

Interclub 10 mile race – Sunday 8 January

Come and join us for this race, starting at 9.30am from Great Bromley Village Hall (registration 8.45-9.15am). Friendly marshals, a flat course with PB potential and a bit of friendly rivalry with Harwich – what more could you ask for? Everyone is welcome and every runner scores points for the club. You can find the full information here.

If you don’t want to run, but could marshal instead, Tom would be happy to hear from you (tomaszko81@gmail.com).

Cross country (XC)

After a break in December (except for those who did the Essex Vets race), XC resumes in January with NESS league fixtures at Writtle on 15 January and Harwich on 29 January. The fifth and final fixture for the year will be Hadleigh on 19 February. It would be great to keep flooding the courses with blue vests! Vicky has recently sent an email with final instructions for Writtle and, most importantly, updates on the baking rota!

Great Bentley half marathon – Sunday 5 February

Thank you to everyone who has volunteered their time to marshal at this event, which is the main annual income-generator for our club. Scott will be in touch nearer the time with further details about your roles.

Thanks to the number of people who volunteered, we were able to do a draw on Awards Night to allocate places to those who were keen to run. Congratulations to the following ladies who will now be running while we all cheer them on: Tricia Stacey, Claire Poole, Bev Hunter, Debs Hollidge, Charlotte Hammond, Karen O’Grady, Lynsey Apps and Helene Tyler.

Training

Our fantastic team of LiRFs and coaches have been wonderful at giving up their time so that we could continue to hold all of our usual training sessions throughout December – thank you to all of you! Our current training schedule runs until the end of January and can be found here, but please also check the weekly doodle poll that is sent via email and the training section of the website for any changes to this.

Head Coach Caroline has started putting together our Spring training schedule and is happy to hear any feedback you have to inform the new schedule (caroline8searle@gmail.com).

Our Ladies Squad

Firstly, I would like to welcome the newest lady joining our squad, Karen Johnson.

Secondly, it’s time to look at all of your many achievements over the past month. If anyone thought a bit of snow and the festive season would stop you ladies, they were wrong!

Here are some highlights of what you all got up to:

• Tricia Stacey and Inga Hayden-Cooper represented our club for the ladies at the Essex Vets XC championships, finishing 9^th and 11^th in their age categories respectively
• Debs Hollidge, Vicky Presland, Sarah Davison and Kathy Bishop completed the tough ‘Let it Stow’ trail half marathon, finishing in great times despite the icy conditions
• Caroline Dyer and Sarah Davison completed 6 laps at the ‘Twas the Run Before Christmas’ event, totalling 20 miles
• Emma Levett-Welham celebrated her 50^th parkrun
• Bee Harris completed what looked like a very fun Rudolph Run at Southend
• At the ATW Colchester Christmas Races, Charlotte Mills completed the 10k and Charlotte Hammond achieved a post-baby 5k PB
• Magdalena Komorowska got a surprise 5 mile PB at the Witham Boxing Day 5 mile race (and definitely ‘beat the pudding’!)
• A number of our ladies embraced the mud and completed either the Runners vs Riders race on Boxing Day or the Twixmas Trail on 27 December (or, in a couple of cases, both!)

Runner(s) of the Month

Since it’s Christmas, and since the men have gone for a double this month, I have seized the opportunity to do the same … and it’s a fun coincidence that these two ladies share the same name!

They have not rested during December, and have been very busy racing and parkrunning. The first is coming back strong from injury, having completed the Southend Rudolph Run and four parkruns this month, spreading joy to all those who are lucky enough to run with her.

I’m not sure how the second lady even found time to eat her Christmas dinner, between Christmas Eve parkrun, Christmas Day parkrun, Runners vs Riders and Twixmas trail. But we shouldn’t be surprised, as this lady is a regular at races all year round and always runs with a smile on her face.

Our runners of the month are … Bee Harris and Bee Palmer-Barnes. Congratulations!

All that is left to say is that Meera and I would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year. It’s been a pleasure for us to be your Ladies Captain and Vice Captain since April, and we look forward to running with all of you and no doubt celebrating even more achievements in the new year.