Hi Ladies! Autumn is here; I have already got my gloves out, so I am not sure what is going to happen when it actually gets properly cold! In September we still had some lovely weather, and you definitely took advantage of it with some fantastic running. Well done all!

News and Notices

Cross Country is back! – 29^th October

We have of course come to my favourite time of year: Cross Country (“XC”) season. The first NESS league fixture is on 29^th October and hosted by Springfield.

For those that are new to XC here are the cliff notes:

The club pays for members to run, and you don’t need to register before hand so just turn up and give it a go!
There is no such thing as too slow; all abilities are welcome. GBRC often have the largest number of runners on the field, and we want this to remain the case.
Having said the above, it is a league and there is an element of competition. I will be giving my usual brand of encouragement so that our ladies score as well as they can, and we can feel success as a team. (Brace yourselves ladies 😉)
Courses are approx. 5 miles but have been known to vary half a mile either way, so be prepared for that!
XC is of course off-road. You will encounter long grass, mud, puddles, gravel, sand, etc. appropriate footwear will make running easier: trail shoes or spikes are a consideration.
To make the life of the person doing the results easier, please email Vicky Presland with your name and DOB before the first fixture so she can pre-add you to the results sheets. This does not commit you to anything but means if you do decide to turn up and run, the admin is already done.
You must wear a blue vest to run. If you do not yet have one, contact Barbara Law.

Vicky will be providing more information as the date gets closer. I really hope to see a massive group of GBRC ladies on 29^th of October.

XC – Our race on December 10^th

As part of the NESS league, GBRC host the Hilly Fields event, which will be the third fixture in this year’s league.

Please look out for emails from me over the coming weeks asking for volunteers on this event. We have to get the balance right between having people volunteer and having people run (as we still want to put a strong field out) so either way save this date in particular. We will want as many members as possible to be there either running or marshalling.

Awards Night – 16^th December

The committee has set the date for this year’s awards night. We will be having the usual format of the Awards party on the Saturday night and then a social run with breakfast (and tidying up after the night before) on Sunday morning.

Mags is preparing information to be sent out, the key notes are:

It’s free to come but to help us know how many chairs to set out, please let Mags know if you plan to come (using the google form she will send out)
Bring your own food and drink: there is no catering this year. To keep the event free we have decided to not cater the event but ask you to bring whatever you want to eat (full blown meal or bag of crisps, your choice).
We will start the awards presentations at 7pm so please arrive in good time – there have been a lot of achievements this year and we want to give them all their moment in the spotlight without rushing.
After awards we will have our usual disco: come in your dancing shoes!

The morning after, on 17^th, we will have our social run with breakfast. We will need to know how many sausages to buy for this so again use the google form to say if you intend to come and have breakfast.

Awards Voting

For some reason, every year we struggle to get people to vote for awards. However, I really hope this year is different. The GBRC ladies are a constant source of inspiration with their various achievements and awards night is one of the ways we celebrate those achievements.

Try as we might, it is impossible for Lisa and me to know about everything that our ladies do, or the circumstances in which they are doing them. By voting you might highlight something that we would have missed when casting our votes.

So, this is a plea from me: please take the time to cast your votes this year.

If you need help deciding who to vote for, race reports from weeks gone by are here: https://gbrc.org.uk/category/race-reports/page/3/

And captains’ newsletters are here:

https://gbrc.org.uk/category/captains-newsletters/

Thank you in advance!

GBRC versus Harwich 10 miler – 7^th January

Tom is working hard to arrange our annual competition against Harwich Runners over 10 miles. We hope to hold this on 7^th January so pencil it in your diary and get training!

Training

A reminder to continue to fill in the google form if you are coming to sessions. If sessions have no one signed up, they will be cancelled. The poll also helps leaders know what number of runners to expect and potentially to alter their session plans to suit numbers so signing up remains important.

And details of training will always be on our website as well.

An additional reminder that the nights are drawing in, and we start to lose the light now so high-viz is required at training sessions and lights if you have them.

It will also start to get cold soon (see above note, I am already wearing gloves when out and about), so consider what this means to your session plans. Make sure to take the time to warm up before any speed work: warm muscles are happy muscles!

Our Ladies Squad

What we did

I was blown away when it came to looking back at what we did this month. So many of you achieved brilliant things. I hope I haven’t missed something but given the sheer volume of brilliance this month, it would be surprising if I did manage to know about it all. So, this is what you did:

We took on the Essex Way Relay and there were some stonking performances: I particularly noted Laura Cook’s 46^th position on leg 6 of the race and Vicky Presland’s 43^rd on leg 2;
Caroline Dyer ran 100k in the Thames Path Challenge;
Sammy Cotton bagged her second marathon major at Berlin;
Lisa Briggs bagged a 5k PB and a top 10 position at parkrun alongside two pieces of silverware this month at Dedham and Langham 10ks;
Dedham and Langham both saw loads of blue vested ladies following our Vice-cappy home: Tonie Wilson, Charlotte Hammond, Karen Johnson, Debbie Smith and Jenny Harvey at Langham and Sarah Davison, Debbie Smith, Alison Clarke and Claire Poole at Dedham;
Alison Clarke also took on the Felixstowe 10 miler;
At the Great North Run, Laura Cook, Helen Coe and Donna Harris flew the blue flag;
Donna Harris then went on to get a PB at the Ipswich Half Marathon and a parkrun PB on the last day of the month. She also bagged her London Classics medal this month after completing the 2-mile swim;
Kim Chatting completed the Swiss Peaks Trail Marathon;
Inga Hayden-Cooper represented the blue vests at the Pleshy Half Marathon;
At the Rebellion 10k, Marion Simmons was the fourth lady home, at the Rebellion half marathon Larina Marsh was the third lady home; and for the 6-hour timed event, Sarah Blewden was also third;
Magdalena Komorowska took on the Maldon Half and got a lovely 3^rd place trophy, she also took on the Thaxted Trail half with Anthea Colsell and finished the month with a win at Craig’s 600m knockout challenge;

WOW!

For those who want to catch up on past exploits, the race reports can be found here: https://gbrc.org.uk/category/race-reports/

Welcome Welcome

A warm GBRC welcome to Emily O’Neil who joins us this month. I hope GBRC is treating you well so far.

Runner of the month

As can be seen above, there was a lot on the table when it came to selecting a ROM for September. It would be easy to be dazzled by shiny silverware and PBs. However, running isn’t always about beating others; or even about beating the past version of you.

Sometimes running is about overcoming your recent circumstances and working diligently to do the best you can at the current time and most importantly, HAVE FUN DOING IT!

Therefore, this month I am giving ROM to someone who has done just that. It was fairly recently that this lady was observed in a wheelchair after having treatment on her feet. However, some sensible training and determination meant that this month she traveled to the lake district and completed the Keswick Half Marathon in a very respectable 2 hours and 15 mins. She also had a pretty speedy parkrun while up there too!

This month we celebrate a truly lovely member of our club: Yolande Arnold. Well done Yolande, we are so very proud of you.