Men’s August newsletter

· by · in Captain's Newsletters. ·

Chaps, this month I’m going for the stripped-down option for your August newsletter. Think more of an acoustic EP than a double concept album or, for those not that way inclined, more of an amuse-bouche than a three-course roast. In short, I’ll be keeping this short.

Dates for your diary

You should all have had an email from Meera including everything you need to know about XC this year, but I just wanted to draw your attention to the main NESS League dates again:

  • Sunday 27 October – Ipswich
  • Sunday 8 December – Gosfield
  • Sunday 12 January – Writtle
  • Sunday 26 January – Harwich
  • Sunday 23 February – Hadleigh
  • Sunday 9 March – Hilly Fields

Last year our lady’s team kept us in Pool A and we often struggled to get the same number of men to attend. XC is great fun, great marathon training, and a great team event for us all to participate in as a club, so please come along to as many as you can. 

To help with the off-road training, Jon and I have also arranged some off-road parkrun tourism so we can all find our XC legs. Everyone is welcome to join us. The dates are: 

  • Saturday 28 September – Mersea Island parkrun
  • Saturday 26 October – Thornham Walks parkrun
  • Saturday 23 November – Bury St Edmunds parkrun
  • Saturday 7 December – Highwoods parkrun

Runner of the Month

There have been some standout performances this month and several contenders for R.O.M. Several of you tackled some longer events, including the SVP50 and the Sea2sky 25k, but it was some of the shorter distances that really caught our eye this month:

  1. Robbie Lee earned himself a pushchair PB at Colchester Castle Parkrun with a time of 23:45. Having pushed a pushchair around that course myself I know how hard it is. Well done, Robbie.
  2. In the 10k Flynn Eyre added to his fantastic performances this year with a third-place finish in the Clacton 10k in 37:53.
  3. In the Clacton Half Marathon, Gavin Byrne finished in 7th place overall in a time of 1:22:21, as well as completing the ATW Colchester Friday Night 5k in the fantastic time of 17:07 and winning our very own Geoff Day 5k in 17:27. 

However, just like last month, this month’s Runner of the Month goes to a man who has been putting in the hard work since returning from injury earlier in the year. I know he struggled when he was unable to run following the London Marathon in April, but since then he’s been working really hard to get back to full fitness and this month it’s all come together with a couple of fantastic PBs. Firstly, at the ATW Colchester Friday Night 5k where he clocked 17:35 and then at the Big Half (yes, technically I know this was in September) where he went under 80 minutes for the first time over 13.1 miles with a time of 1:18:52. Well done, Crag Slocombe, you are our runner of the month for August.