I started to plan this Saturday morning, whilst I was still cold and wet after Highwoods parkrun, and then when I came to save my draft, ,the sun had come out and it was like it had never been that wet and windy two hours earlier! That’s running in British weather for you!

Many of you did brave the weather, or found parkruns in other parts of the country which might have experienced better conditions at 9am! Meera Rajoo-Oakley and Robin Oakley ran at Windy Nook parkrun (Highwoods should have been renamed that!) The Cottons and the Harris’ were in Poland seeking the Z in their alphabet of parkruns. They were successful after running at Zamek w Malborku. Simon Leggett ran well to cross the finish line before anyone else at Mersea Island parkrun. There also tourism visits to York, South Woodham Ferrers and Brandon Country Park parkruns for Bentley Blues. All results can be found here.

Wix 5 mile race was held on Sunday, there was a good turnout of Bentley blue vests. We had some performances that gained access to the top ten all time race times, the last mile headwind obviously not causing too much havoc! Well done to Lisa Briggs, not only a top 10 time, but a PB of 33:55, and a third lady prize, which has hopefully been awarded now after a category mistype. Jacob Horton finished second overall in an excellent time of 27:43 which puts him in our top 10 performance table too. We had another male finisher in the top ten runners, Craig Slocombe crossed the line in 29:42 with a 4 second PB. Steve Bullen ran a PB in 31:51. Caroline Dyer bagged a PB in a time of 39:02, which is 40 seconds faster than her previous best. Andrea Markwick got a PB of 44:00 even with the swampy run in, a swift change from 4.9 miles of road running. Gary Cooper also ran a PB in a time of 54:48. Well done to all 20 of you who raced. The full results can be found here.

The next running race distance after 5 miles is 10km and David Wright went to Southwold to run their 10km race. It had a repeated 20-30m stretch of floodwater that slowed everyone down, but David still managed a great time of 42:41.

Larina Marsh ran the self navigated Elmstead Market trail marathon. With this route 90% off road, there was a lot of water and mud to navigate. Larina came across the finish line just after 6 hours, and this was off the back of completing another marathon distance a couple of week ago – well done Larina!

Fraser Lewis went slightly further afield to find a marathon to run as he took part in the 52nd New York City Marathon. The first New York City Marathon took place in 1970 and was held entirely in Central Park and had 127 entrants and 55 finishers, this year Fraser was one of 51,402 finishers. Despite a slip leading to injury at mile 17, Fraser still ran a great time of 4:18:27. It looked like the weather was kinder to this year’s participants after last year’s heatwave.

I thought Fraser was in NYC, not running down Baker Street!