September is a month where summer steadily gives way to autumn, nature starts to slow down and the leaves turn to gold and bronze. Well the runners at Great Bentley show no signs of slowing down but the gold and bronze has started to appear in the form of trophies. There has been plenty to write about over these last couple of weeks and so many of you have had some brilliant races so please read on.
Dedham 10K
This was the first of two extremely popular local village races that are run on consecutive weekends the second being the Langham 10k but more on that later. The Dedham 10K is a great course that is known more for its undulating profile with an incredibly long hill that rises up from the high street and doesn’t seem to stop it’s also in the second half of the race making it quite a tactical race to run. This however didn’t stop 11 of you having a go with a coupe of notable performances as well. Craig Slocombe finished 3rd overall and Steve Bullen finished 1st in his age category both coming away with trophies, amazing work guys the rest of the results are as follows,
Craig Slocombe 36m.29s, Flynn Eyre 38m.27s, Steve Bullen 40m.37s, Rob Dyre 41m.24s, James Eyre 41m.52s,
Danny Draper 45m,00s, Ray Baggs 46m.39s, Caroline Dyer 50m.15s, Bev Shortley 58m.37s, Debbie Smith 1h,3m,27s, Martin West 1h.4m.46s
Pleshy Half marathon
Pleshy is a village just North of Chelmsford where every year Springfield Striders host their half marathon, which is also one of the Essex championship races. This year the race had been brought forward by an hour to avoid anyone racing in too hotter temperatures. This was a good move as the temperature did noticeably start to climb as the morning wore on. Mags, Tom H, Inga and myself all ran I am pleased to announce that both Tom and Mags achieved pb’s with Tom beating his by a staggering nine minutes!!! Inga had a great race and came in much quicker than she anticipated, and I managed to get a course pb as well. Our finishing times were
Inga 1h.53m.4s, Tom 1h.46m.35s(pb), Mags 1h.40m.9s, and me 1h.27m.9s
The Sudbury Trail run
Mark Crittenden was a solo Bentley at the Sudbury trail run race, not one I’d heard of but it looks like a great one to do. It’s a lapped course through some stunning Suffolk countryside Mark ran for 8.3 miles and bagged himself a great medal and pair of socks, which he chose over a Baseball cap I would have done the same.
THE LAP
What is the lap, it’s one full loop of lake Windermere which is approximately 45 miles long with 9000 ft of elevation it’s also known as the beautiful ultra. Beautiful it maybe but it is no small undertaking as Larina Marsh knows. She took on this this stunning yet demanding course hoping to get round in roughly 17-18 hours but made it to the end in 15hrs 21mins which is an awesome achievement well done Larina.
Mayflower challenge
The Mayflower Trail Challenge is a 13.1 mile route along the delightful scenery of the Essex Way. The way it works is you catch a train from Manningtree to Harwich then run back which sounds rather fun. Craig Mitchel, Caroline Searle and Rachel Rogers all took on this rugged course.
All three had a great race with Craig finishing in 8th place and Rachel finishing 26 minutes quicker than two years previous, great stuff guys. Their times are as follows
Craig 1h.42m, Caroline 2h.26m, Rachel 2h.32m
Ipswich half marathon
Just a short jaunt up the A12 is where another half marathon took place in the Town of Ipswich.
The route starts at Portman Road then takes you round the streets of the town and out and back under the Orwell bridge which must be quite a sight. Gavin Byrne who suffered a stitch 12K into the race still managed to zip round 1h 23m, well done for hanging in there. In total I know of five blues that ran the route and their times are as follows,
David Jones 2h.26m, Bev Shortley 2h.16m., Martin (Tractor boy) Cotton 2h 13m,
Tim Clifton 2h7m, Gavin Byrne 1h 23m
Langham 10K
So, in the second of the local village 10K races we have the Langham 10K a course which I have run several times in the past, but alas not this year. This course is tougher than people give it credit for and I think that there are more gradual inclines around the route steadily taking their toll on the runners that take it on. This however was not a problem for Craig Slocombe who managed a 10K pb and men’s team captain Charie Keitch after having a string of injuries this year got back under the 40 minute mark, well done gents. The times for the runners of Bentley who tackled the Langham 10K are,
Gary Cooper1h.12m.20s Loraine Adams1h.10m 23s, Donna Harris1h.10m Donna Parker 1h.6m31s
Mark Harris 1hr 1m, Robbie Lee48m.58s, Inga Hyden-Cooper 50m56s Dean Pepper 48m,49s
Charlie Keitch 39m 56s and Craig Slocombe 36m.16s(pb)
Sadly, Steve Bullen who started the race strong had to pull up just after three miles as he was suffering from suspected Plantar fasciitis, I hope this doesn’t stop you running for too long Steve.
Surry Tops
Paul Davidson, Tomaz Komorowski and Rob Dyer took on the Surry tops LDWA event which is a 50 mile trail course made up of footpaths and bridleways and has some staggering elevation. They all reported on how beautiful yet tough the course was as they had to deal with a lot of mud and torrential downpours along the way. Before taking on this daunting challenge they though it best to go for a warm up and did so at the Local Parkrun, I guess what’s three more miles when your about to run fifty, crazy or brave I’m not sure which but well done gents.
Parkruns
I can’t finish a race report without mentioning the weekly staple that is Parkrun.
So here is a snapshot of the last couple of weeks Parkruns about 65 of you ran at Parkrun events over the last couple of weeks at fourteen different locations. Rich Moor gets noted as the furthest travelled Parkrunner this time as he ran at the New Earswick Parkrun all the way up in York.
The first of the next four Bentley Parkrun tourism destinations is this Saturday 28th and it’s just up the road at Cudmore Grove. Unfortunately, I can’t make this one but I hope plenty of you do the weather is looking good for it.
Well done to every that has run over the last couple of weeks you have all done amazingly well!
Great Bentley Running Club 