Hi ladies!  There’s a lot to cover this month, so I’ll jump right in with our ‘news and notices’ in roughly chronological order of upcoming events.

News and Notices

Information night – Wednesday 8 March

As previously mentioned, over the course of 2023 the committee is hosting monthly information nights on a Wednesday as part of the club session. These will be a short chat about a specific thing the club does, as well as giving opportunity for Q&A. Wednesday 8 March will be a chat about club membership and updates on this. We have received positive feedback about the sessions held so far, so please attend if you can!

Upcoming ladies socials in March

• Saturday 18 March  – we’ll be in Clacton on 18 March for “Ladies Morning” at parkrun. Please put it in your diaries and join us for parkrun and coffee/cake/breakfast afterwards.
• Saturday 25 March – thanks to those of you who have signed up for the end of XC season celebratory meal. I’ll be emailing you soon with some more details about venue and menu choices!

Ladies XC Runner of the Year

An email will be sent round next week asking you to vote for your ladies XC runner of the year, and the winner will be announced at our meal on 25 March. Please still vote even if you can’t make the meal or you didn’t take part in XC this year. A spreadsheet will be provided in the email with all the results to help you make up your mind!

Annual General Meeting – 5 April

The club’s AGM will be held on the evening of Wednesday 5 April at Great Bentley Village Hall. This is an opportunity to meet the committee, discuss the club’s activity in the last year and put forward ideas for the club in the year ahead, as well as confirm any new committee members. Please do try to come if you can.

I will direct you to the email from 22 February regarding the different committee positions. The main thing to note is that nominations can be accepted for any role, even if the person currently in the position is not stepping down. We would then have a club vote to select the official. You can nominate yourself for a role but you will need someone else to “second” your nomination. Please email Mags, our Club Secretary ((magskom.com@gmail.com), by 12 March with any nominations.

Essex Road Relays – Sunday 16 April

Hopefully you will have seen an email with full details about this fun team event. Don’t think twice about getting involved if you haven’t before; it’s open to everyone whatever your speed and all your clubmates will be cheering you on! Please sign up by emailing Meera (meerarajoo@googlemail.com) with the details requested in the email.

Craig events – free places for Run Layer 5 on 30 April

Craig Mitchell is kindly offering some free places for club members for this 5 mile event. You can find more event details here. Please email Mags (magskom.com@gmail.com) by 10 March if you are interested.

Mickey Edwards 5k series dates

The dates for our summer 5k handicap series for 2023 are: 3 May, 17 May, 31 May, 14 June and 28 June. If you weren’t able to attend the information session about this series, you can read all about it on our website.

Friday 5 series

The dates for this popular local series of Friday evening 5 milers have been published for 2023. They are:

26 May – Kirton
2 June – Sudbury
9 June – Framlingham
16 June – Bury
30 June – Stowmarket

We host the final fixture at Great Bentley on 7 July. Please do not enter this one, as club members will be asked to volunteer with the running of the event.

Ipswich Ekiden – Sunday 23 July

I know how many of you enjoy this large-scale team relay event, so we wanted to confirm the date nice and early so you can keep it free! If this is a new term to you, Ekiden is an event where you run a marathon in teams, with the distance broken down into 6 legs of varying lengths. We put a gazebo up, bring refreshments and use it as an opportunity for a big club social (with a bit of running while we’re there!) We’ll be asking for interested members to submit names for team allocations nearer the time, so for now it’s just a date for the diary.

Training

Head Coach Caroline has put together our Spring 2023 training schedule which can be found here. On a weekly basis, doodle polls will continue to be sent round by email, and our training webpage will be updated.

Friday morning social runs with Vicky are starting again from this week, covering 5-6 miles and finishing by 8.30am. Come and join us, it’s a great way to meet new people and explore new routes!

Our Ladies Squad

It’s great to see that there have been quite a few new ladies joining our squad this month! Welcome to: Katie Siggery, Debbie Siggery, Frances Laverack, Michelle Bygrave and Lucy Milgate! Meera and I hope to meet you soon, and hope you enjoy training with the club.

What we did

It’s yet another month where Meera and I are so proud of our ladies’ efforts, both on an individual basis and as a team.

As a club, we pulled together to make our half marathon a huge success, which is so vital for raising the funds we need to continue to enjoy the many benefits of our membership. Whether you marshalled, helped in the kitchen, ran or helped in some other way – well done to you all!

In further evidence of our team spirit, the last fixture of the NESS XC League took place in Hadleigh and, despite it being a challenging course, our ladies showed up in force to give in their best. We finished third again and helped secure the club’s third place finish in the league for the year. More importantly, we had a great turnout of blue vests at every fixture and definitely showed the greatest team spirit of all the clubs (in my only-slightly biased view).

The individual achievements have been flowing thick and fast this month too. Here are some highlights:

• The amazing Fiona Gosling completed the Roundhay 50, a 50 mile event in Yorkshire organised by the Long Distance Walkers Association with huge amount of elevation and a challenging 22 hour time limit;
• Our Runner of the Month for January, Debs Hollidge, has continued her run of good form with a big half marathon PB at our half marathon and a 5k PB at Markshall Estate parkrun;
• Mags Komorowska finished the XC season strong at Hadleigh, with an 8^th place finish taking her into the club’s all-time top 10, and she also secured a 7 minute PB over 20 miles at Tarpley;
• Tricia Stacey achieved a fantastic 4 star time at our half marathon and finished first in her age category at Hadleigh XC;
• Ladies Captain Meera finished her XC season on a high, representing the club on a national stage at the English National XC Championships.
• Janine Simpson completed the London Winter 10k, which was her first race in 18 months. Despite the break from racing, she still completed it in a great time of 57:35.

We’re also proud of the ladies showing great determination and resilience in coming back from injuries, setbacks and other major life changes. Great examples of this include Bee Harris, achieving 3 seconds under her previous PB from before her fracture at Harwich parkrun, and Charlotte Hammond rising to the challenge of her first post-baby half marathon. Helene Tyler and Leoni Harvey also battled through mid-race injury/illness this month to complete their half marathons. After being forced to miss XC season, we’re looking forward to having Rachel Taylor back for the upcoming road relays. I can also see that Grainne Hallahan, Yolande Arnold. Sammy Cotton have worked hard to get back to parkrun recently. These ladies are an inspiration to us all, as are those who are slogging away on their long runs training for their upcoming Spring races.

I would also like to mention the group of ladies who spend every Saturday morning throwing themselves into local parkrun tourism around Essex and Suffolk. It serves as a great reminder that running is really about having fun, exploring new routes and doing it with great company.

Runner of the Month

With so much hard work going on, it wasn’t straightforward for Meera and I to choose ‘Runner of the Month’ this month, but I think you’ll agree that this lady is deserving. She is a committed regular at hills and track training sessions, and a supportive teammate to all. Her hard work paid of this month with a PB of almost 16 minutes at the Tarpley 20, and she rounded off a successful XC season with a 27^th place finish at Hadleigh.

She is extremely humble and I don’t think she’ll mind me saying that she doesn’t always have faith in her own abilities, but hopefully her achievements this month will show her how amazing she is.

Congratulations Hien Hoang!