October is seemingly the month where racing picks up a pace! And it also seems that some of you are picking up prizes too!

Let’s start with Saturday and parkrun. Many of you took part in local runs whilst Donna and Mark Harris ran Cornerstones Lake parkrun in Chicago, a relatively new parkrun at 6 months old. What made me smile was, when I looked at the results for this parkrun, there were so many British club runners. This was because the Chicago marathon just happened to be the next day! It was also interesting to see that normally they average about 24 finishers – this week they had 165 runners, with only 9 runners having done that course before. The run director must have been in for a shock!

Paul and Deborah Hollidge were in Bristol and tried out Eastville parkrun, which included a hill in each of its 3 laps. All results can be found here.

Sunday was a busy day for races. Let’s go back to Chicago first, where there was a world record broken in the men’s elite race. Kelvin Kiptum running in only his third marathon finished in 2:00:35. The race for a ‘true sub 2′ marathon time is definitely on. Following in Kiptum’s wake were Alan Johnson, 4:33:07 and the Harris’ with Donna coming home in 4:32:39 and Mark in 4:34:01. Well done to you all!

London was the venue for the Royal Parks Half marathon which sees runners go through and around the royal parks in central London. We had a few GBRC representatives running this race, on an unusually warm October day. Nearly 16,000 runners took part. Larina Marsh, Andrea Markwick, Sarah Blewden, Beverly Shortley, Robbie Lee and his partner Carly all took part. Many of them ran this race for charities.

There were also a few local races to choose from this Sunday. Tiptree 10 miles is a popular local 10 milers with a dreaded hill on the 9th mile. This doesn’t seem to put any of you off though. We had a PB run from Craig Slocombe in 1:01:23. The rest of the results are below. Chris Warren and Inga Hayden-Cooper also finished the Essex Grand Prix series with county gold medals for their age categories with Charlie Keitch picking up a bronze county medal. Chris’ category was a very close contest with a few points between 1st and 3rd. Each year, Essex County Athletics Association choose races from each distance as their series race. Points are awarded to runners who live in Essex. County medals are given out at each of these races chosen.

Capel 5 miles is also a popular local race, an out and back course with a hill thrown in for good measure. Lisa Briggs was second lady home and first in her age category. She ran in 34:36. Graham Semple ran in 38:35, Dean Pepper, 39:37, Paul Hughes 42:57, Brian Telford 46:03 and Frank Gardiner 52:53.

There was also a 10k race at Bury St Edmunds this Sunday. This was the inaugural race so it may be one for some of your calendars next year if it is put on again. Steve Bullen came 1st in his age category and 12th overall with a time of 40:12. He described the route as hilly.

So this week’s report had everything from 5km through to marathon distances with a sprinkling of medals and trophies to top off a great week of running.