Friday Night Lights to Any Given Sunday

The running community has lost a running legend with the sad passing of Arthur Whiston last week. A stalwart at running events and local Parkruns for so many years, Arthur was a friend to many. Highwoods Parkrun will be paying tribute to Arthur at their event on 13/7 if you would like to pay your respects. RIP Arthur.

Parkrun

For the second parkrun summer touring instalment, the B in GBRC, eight runners headed to Brentwood. Charlie Keitch described the course as beautiful but undulating. Next up is Rendlesham on 27th July and anyone is welcome to join.

The Hollidges couldn’t join the Brentwood trip but still got a Parkrun in whilst heading to the north. The awesomely named Bug Hunter Waters is just off the A14 in Cambridge. This was their third event and despite only having 100 people on the first week, this event saw more than 400 participants. Debs said – there is lots of free parking, it’s lovely setting and fast and flat.

Paul Smith ventured out to Harwich Parkrun and got himself a time of 23:21. This gave Paul first place in his age category of 65 to 69 and he managed to cut an impressive 19 seconds off his recent Micky Edwards time.

Caroline Coastal 10k

Mark Crittenden, Emma Levett-Welham, Neil Robins and Leoni Harvey ran this narrative trail event in Maldon as a group and Mark says the route is lovely.

Horndon-On-The-Hill 10k

Men’s runner of the month, Stephen Bullen, ran this hilly road-based event on June 30^th. Stephen finished in 39.58 on a course he compared to a rollercoaster course in 39:58 (21^st overall). He was also 6^th in the M50 category.

Outrun 2024

Hare and Tortoise staged their last 24 event with Outrun 24 on the 29^th and 30^th June. The course is a 2.5-mile loop, on a mixed terrain of hard packed footpaths, grass paths and woodland trails and the aim is to run as many laps as you can in the time available.

Sue Wright ran 15.2 miles in the 6 hour section. Larina Marsh was part of a team of two entered in for the full 24 hours. The team ran for almost 17 hours and managed 41 miles each giving the “Sexy Ladies” an 82 mile total.

Holkham Gravel Sprint

Meera Rajoo-Oakley – entered this one as her first triathlon event. It is comprised of a 750m swim, 19km cycle and a 5km run all in the traffic free grounds of Holkham Estate. Meera finished as 10^th lady and was first in her age category in a time of 1:42:53.

Friday Night 5

On 5^th July (a coincidence?) saw the Great Bentley stop of the popular Friday 5 series. For those that don’t know, the Friday 5 is a series of five-mile races and accompanying junior races held on Friday evenings between May and July each year, across Suffolk and Essex.

Many GBRC runners were volunteering at the event with a number selected from volunteers to run the event. GBRC runners were Caroline Searle (46:32), Deborah Hollidge (45:35), Donna Harris 43:18, Mark Harris (42:04), David Allen (33:24), Rob Dyer (33:17), Paul Davison (31:37), Charles Keitch (31:10), Chris Warren (31:05), Jon Mann (30:00) and Craig Slocombe (29:37).

Ipswich Ekiden

One day’s rest saw many GBRC runners back in action at the Ipswich Ekiden on 7^th July. An Ekiden is a long-distance relay running race that originated in Japan. Events began in the early 20th century, inspired by the old Japanese transportation system of messengers running between stations. Individual runners run a designated leg of the race before passing a sash (tasuki) to the next runner. The Ipswich Ekiden requires teams to cover the distance of a marathon in total and instead of a sash, runners pass each other a baton at the end of each leg.

GBRC had a number of teams running Sunday’s Event. Team “Cotton On” won the exclusive GBRC Ekiden trophy. Congratulations to Eileen, Sammy, David, Martin, Donna and Jon.

GBRC’s competitive mixed open team won their whole category! Congratulations to Andrea J, Flynn E, Craig, Paul B, Milly and Gavin Byrne!

Organiser Lisa also passed on her thanks to those hardy souls Meera, Charlie, Inga, Jon M and Paul D who ran twice so everyone who wanted to could run along with a huge thanks to Rodger, the first in and last out always.