Hi ladies. June has been a scorcher, and I’m not sure if you’ve been managing to keep cool, but you’ve certainly been keeping very busy, with lots more still to come this summer. So read on for everything you need to know about upcoming events, as well as all of your achievements this month …

News and notices

Mickey Edwards series

After the culmination of the series this week, I just wanted to extend a well done to everyone who took part and a huge thank you to those involved in organising and putting on the series for us. Lots of work goes on behind the scenes so that we can ‘enjoy’ (maybe not always the right word when you’re 2 miles in!) this series for free. Many of you took part, and it was fantastic to see 5 ladies in the top 10 at the end of the series.

Great Bentley Friday 5 – Friday 7 July

Thank you to everyone who has volunteered their time for marshalling or other roles at this event. Race Director Matt will be in touch shortly (if he hasn’t already by the time I publish this!) to confirm further details of your roles, and to confirm who out of the volunteers has been drawn at random to run (from those who said they would like to).

A reminder that we will be having a cake stall after the event, so donations of baked goods (including savoury) would be extremely welcome. I know from speaking to other clubs at Friday 5 events that our cake stall is famous and many look forward to it to celebrate the end of the series!

Geoff Day Memorial 5k – Wednesday 19 July

After a few weeks’ rest from 5k after the end of the Mickey Edwards series, I’m sure you will all be recovered and eager to join in with the club’s annual 5k race, in memory of club member Geoff Day, who passed away in 2010 and still holds the majority of the top spots of our ‘top 10 GBRC performances’. 

We really want to make this a successful event and celebrate Geoff’s life and love of running. You can go for a trophy, a time (as well as maybe bagging a PB on this flat course, it counts towards club performance standards and club championships) or just have an enjoyable run on a summer evening with friends and socialise afterwards with some food. Please support the event if you can!

Information can be found on our Geoff Day Memorial 5k webpage and another email will also be sent prior to the event.  

Ekiden relays– Sunday 23 July

It’s only three weeks to go until this very popular event in the club calendar and all those who signed up should have received an email a few weeks ago with a first draft of team allocations. You’ll also receive another email this week with final instructions from the race organisers and an updated team list (though there’s only been one small change from the previous one). Please look out for that email and read all the instructions (even if you have taken part before) because it’s a new venue this year!

GBRC Trail Runs

I hope many of you managed to enjoy the beautiful route that Rodger organised for us for June and that you’re looking forward to the rest of series. You need to complete all four trail runs (June – September) for your times to count towards the championship and to receive your free t-shirt, but if you’re not able to do this you can still complete them anytime at your leisure as they’re all published on our Trail Runs webpage. July’s route starts from Brantham and instructions have now been published. The standings after the June route will be available soon.

Essex Way Relay – Sunday 3 September

Thanks to everyone who has signed up to take part in this event. I’ll be sending an email soon with confirmation of which stage you’ll be running, so that you can get a practice run in before September!

For those who aren’t running, you’d still be very welcome to join us in Harwich to cheer our final stage runners in. We had a lot of fun last year, and it turned into a nice club social at the end.

Training          

Our training sessions for the week are always listed on our ‘Training’ webpage and our Summer training schedule runs up to the end of August.

Head Coach Caroline is now circulating a link to a google form each week for us to use to sign up to sessions, after some changes to the doodle polls we previously used made them unworkable.

Signing up to a session isn’t compulsory and you can always turn up the day, but it’s really helpful for those leading the session to have a rough idea of numbers. A session may also be cancelled if nobody has signed up.  

Our Ladies Squad

Welcome

Welcome to new member Gemma Williams. It’s great to have you and I hope you have enjoyed your runs with the club so far!

What we did this month

I think it’s fair to say that June has been absolutely jam-packed!  Our ladies have raced all over, on track, roads and trails, and in distances ranging from 1 mile to 90k! There have been PBs, podium finishes, ultramarathon titles, county medals, money raised for worthy causes and milestone parkruns.

You’ve celebrated 75 years of the NHS (and selfied with Paul Sinton-Hewitt!), navigated your way through the Stour Valley, survived hot and hilly local races, and Friday Five-d at Sudbury, Framlingham, Bury and Stowmarket. There have been parkruns as far afield as Canada, and races in Poland. You pushed yourselves to keep improving at our Mickey Edwards 5k series and the ongoing Harwich 5k series. Finally, a number of you challenged yourselves with more than just running – including first time triathlons and early morning swim/run events.

You’re all inspiring and I feel proud even writing all of that!

Runner of the Month

With so many races and amazing results this month, there were many contenders for ROM. However, this lady stood out after just missing out on the series win for Mickey Edwards, during which she improved her 5k time by almost 3 minutes. She’s also been smashing out the course PBs at Highwoods parkrun this month.

Our ‘Runner of the Month’ for June is Anthea Colsell. Congratulations!