I know. You’ve got questions.  What will Charlie’s newsletters be like?  Will they be as bad as his race reports? Will he still try to be ‘funny’ when all we really want to know is who’s got Runner of the month? Or, will he change tack and play it straight down the line? Well, this month I’m keeping things brief and to the point, but next time is anyone’s guess.

May highlights:

• Some storming performances at Witham Runner’s May Day 10, including Craig Slocombe who flew around the course in just 1:03:18;
• Adam Waller-Toyne tackling a whopping 103 miles at the Five Rivers Ultra;
• The start of the summer 5k season, which has seen some outstanding performances already, including Gary Copper who is edging ever closer to a sub-30-minute 5k at both Harwich and our very own Micky Edwards series;
• Super Sunday on 14 May which saw our men in action at Colchester 10k, the Colchester Stampede 10k and the Essex and Halstead Marathon (where we also picked up two Essex County bronze medals);
• A sea of blue shirts running the Colchester Half Marathon and volunteering along the course;
• John Booty winning the brutal Sabre XXIII weekend.
• and three of our men toeing the start line at the 50th LDWA annual 100-mile challenge in the Midlands.

Coming up in June and beyond:

• Don’t forget you have until the end of the month to complete the first of this year’s trail runs, which is a 6.5 narrative trail run starting and finishing in East Bergholt (as long as you manage to follow the instructions).
• Saturday 17 June is our next parkrun outing to Clacton seafront.  It was great to see so many of you at our first get-together at Marks Hall, so let’s see if we can get a few more to the seaside for a bit of parkrun and some brekkie afterwards.
• It’s our Friday 5 on 7 July and we need as many of you as possible to volunteer to marshal and help the race go ahead. Please email Matt Lavarack if you can help out. Remember, if you want to run our Friday 5, you need to volunteer to marshal to have a chance of being drawn in the ballot – please don’t enter online.
• Even if you don’t get a place to run our Friday 5 everyone is more than welcome to run our Geoff Day Memorial 5k on 19 July.  Please do come along for the culmination of our summer 5ks and some post-race nosh in the hall.  It should be a great night.
• This year’s Essex Way Relay is on 3 September. Get the date in your diaries and look out for an email with more details about how to sign up coming soon.

Runner of the month:

This month’s runner of the month was a two-horse race (please note horses, like dogs, are not actually eligible for runner of the month). Coming very close was Craig Slocombe who has stormed the club champs since first joining us. This month alone he added 5k, 5 miles, 10 miles and 13.1 miles to his tally. What a great month it’s been for him and we’re sure he’ll continue to rack up the strong performances.

However, it was Adam Waller-Toyne who really set the bar in May with his fantastic performance at the Five Rivers Ultra, where he finished the 103-mile route, taking in the rivers Stour, Orwell, Deben, Butley and the Ore/Alde, in 29 hours, 1 minute and 20 seconds. Outstanding running Adam, you are our runner of the month for May.