Ahh the great British summer where we get to put the heating on in June. It looks like many of you wanted to spend as little time as possible outside in the cold given the speedy performances this past weekend.

Parkrun

What is a Saturday if not Parkrun day. Now in its 20^th year, there have been more than 98,000 events across 14 countries. Last Saturday saw GBRC runners at Valentines, Colchester Castle, Eden Project, Thetford, Clacton Seafront, Hockley Woods, Brundall, Harwich, South Woodham Ferrers, Felixstowe, Highwoods, Great Yarmouth, Rendlesham Forest and Thornham Walks.

Meera Rajoo-Oakley organised a GBRC ladies morning at Harwich Parkrun. There was a great turn out and the ladies XC Runner of the Season for 23/24 was announced. Congratulations to Kathy Bishop.

Bee Brent took a birthday trip to Thetford parkrun. Happy belated birthday wishes Bee.

Natalie Martin and Mel Parris took a 335-mile road trip for a long weekend in Cornwall, just so they could do Eden Project parkrun.

Tomasz Komorowski and Daniel Whymark took a spontaneous trip to the Thornham Walks parkrun. They topped off the morning with breakfast and cake at the Lime Tree Café in Stowmarket. Sounds like a recommendation!

Robbie Lee ventured out to South Woodham Ferrers. Finishing in 24.39, Robbie reported a lot of running in single file.

Boxted 10k

Sunday saw the return of the ever popular and very hilly Boxted 10k

Charlie Keitch finished in 41:30 giving him the position of 2nd M40. Overall Charlie finished ninth, just outrunning a teenager, which nearly killed him!

Stephen Bullen finished in 42:16 knocking just over two minutes off of his previous course time. This effort allowed Stephen to finish 12th overall and 2nd M5.

Also representing the blues, we had Malcolm Statham – 47:32, Ben Hughes Day – 49:06 and Daniel Palmer – 50:28.

Boxted also holds a 5k at the same time and the sole representative for the blues in this event was Ray Baggs finishing in a time of 26:41.

The Valley of the Owls

Elsewhere on Sunday Zig Zag running held their Valley of the Owls event. Definitely not taking a long, long time was GBRC’s Jon “Rocket” Mann who in the half marathon distance beat the previous course record by just under 10 minutes. Jon finished a hilly, muddy and mixed terrain half in 1hr 31.

Cateran Yomp

Not a running event, but a great endurance effort nonetheless, the Balfours set off on Saturday to trek 54 miles over 24 hours through the wilds of Scotland. Blisters all round, I’m sure.

We’re going to switch the running reports back to fortnightly following this one, so please keep putting all your achievements and photos in the GBRC group so we have something for you to read about.

Great running everyone and stay safe.