No April foolin’ around

It may have been 1 April this weekend but, I kid you not, there was some seriously good running taking place!

Let’s start with some parkrun highlights from Saturday:

Richard Heath was second finisher at Ipswich parkrun (19:51) and Mark Jasper was first finisher at Clacton Seafront parkrun (17:59)
Charlie Keitch started his holiday with a bang, finishing 8^th and achieving a 5 star 5k time of 19:28 at Rushmoor parkrun
Martin Cotton and Bee Harris both set shiny new PBs at Harwich parkrun (26:28 for Martin and 30:29 for Bee)
Debs Hollidge and Anna Mills were both the second female finishers at Highwoods and Alton Water parkruns respectively

Another Keitch family holiday, another parkrun!

Also on Saturday, local race organisers ‘Company of Runners’ held their ‘Camuplodunum Marathon’, a self-navigating trail course on the trails and tracks encircling Colchester, along with a supporting ‘Camu10kunum’ event. Adam Waller-Toyne and Alex Clancy completed the marathon distance, with Adam finishing in the top 10 with a time of 4:43:40 and Alex in 5:42:49. In the 10k event, Adam Robey finished in second place in 51:45, and was joined by Karen Johnson and Jenny Harvey who ran together to finish in 1:16. Excellent running (and navigating) by you all!

Sunday saw a healthy helping of Spring half marathons and marathons, both near and far, at which the club was represented. Laura Cook, Nina Simmons and Janine Simpson enjoyed the sights and sounds of the city in the London Landmarks Half Marathon. After training really hard for this event, Nina achieved a fantastic time of 2:00:59, and Janine was pleased with her run but was understandably slightly annoyed by the effect of a toilet stop on her time of 2:00:01. Only a few weeks after a half marathon PB at Brentwood, ladies ‘Runner of the Month’ for March Laura Cook continued her incredible run of form with another huge (13 minute) PB of 2:09:49.

Tim Clifton donned his beret and took a trip to Paris, finishing the marathon in 4:47:22 – a particularly impressive time considering that was his 1108^th consecutive day of running! On English soil, Helen Coe was rightly thrilled to complete the Brighton Marathon in 4:58:59 – her first sub 5 hour marathon – and now she marches confidently onto London in 3 weeks’ time.

Congratulations to all of our runners, and I look forward to lots more egg-citing performances to come this month!