On the final weekend (hurray!) of January, 40 members took part in parkrun on Saturday, with Colchester Castle parkrun proving the most popular this week. Phil Presland was pleased to complete his first parkrun since August in 25:10 as part of a longer run for Grizzly training, with David Wright for company.

Deborah Hollidge was the first female and fourth finisher overall at Highwoods parkrun, in an impressive new PB of 24:07. Tricia Stacey and Claire Fathers also took on Highwoods for the first time, in 26:36 and 29:35 respectively.

The parkrun tourist crew of Laura Cook, Bee Harris, Mel Willsmore and Natalie Martin travelled to Felixstowe for the first time, where Martin Owen could also be found getting a PB of 23:10 and his fastest parkrun time in almost a year.

Josh Beaumont was the only GBRC representative at Markshall Estate parkrun, but put in a speedy performance with a second place finish in 18:16.

Up the road in Suffolk, Zoe Reynolds and Emma Welham completed the delightfully-named ‘Windmill Way Wander’ half marathon event, organised by Zig Zag Running. They finished in 03:09:04 and 3:09:31 and it looks like they really enjoyed the event. Well done ladies!

Sunday saw the fourth and penultimate fixture in the NESS league cross country series, held at Wix Equestrian Centre and organised by Harwich Runners. This was a new course and proved to be a good one for those who hate hills and enjoy ditch jumping!

As usual, a sea of blue vests flooded the course and everyone put in an excellent effort. Our four ladies’ scorers were: Magdalena Komorowska (11^th), Lisa Briggs (13^th), Vicky Presland (15^th) and Deborah Hollidge (18^th). Our eight men’s scorers were: Doug McGillvray (6^th), Mark Jasper (11^th), Tim Ballard (15^th), Richard Heath (31^st), Charlie Keitch (35^th), Craig Mitchell (40^th), Matthew Browning (45^th) and Matt Laverack (64^th).

This resulted in both the ladies’ and men’s teams achieving third place, and the club moving up from fourth to third overall in Pool A of the league.

Our juniors also put in another strong performance and are now in 7^th position in the junior league on 64 points, with only a few points separating 7^th-10^th places. It’s all to play for! 

Well done to everyone who took part – it’s great to go into the final fixture at Hadleigh on 19 February in such a strong position!

Charlotte Mills and Bee Harris sought out the mud elsewhere on Sunday at the Lavenham 10k, organised by Raw Trail events. With mud, hills and railway tracks, it sounds even more eventful than XC! Both ladies finished gave a strong performance, with Charlotte finishing in 1:06:31 and Bee in 1:25:11.