MEN’S NEWSLETTER – DECEMBER 2024

· by · in Captain's Newsletters. ·

I think it’s a bit too late to be saying ‘Happy New Year’, so just let me start by saying welcome to 2025!  Whilst this newsletter is meant to be looking back at everything you got up to at the tail end of 2024, I wanted to start by saying well done to everyone who either volunteered or ran at our interclub 10 mile race with Harwich earlier this month. 

Although Harwich beat us on points on the day, it was great to see so many of you there and enjoying one of the many fantastic events that make up our club calendar.

With that in mind here are a few more things you can look forward to this year:

  1. The return of cross country: It may seem like an age since the last NESS XC race in October, but the next event is just around the corner on 26 January. The race will start and finish at the Wix Equestrian centre with the junior race starting at 10am and the senior race starting at 10:45am. We’ll circulate more details as soon as we have them.
  2. The Great Bentley Half Marathon: The best half marathon in the world is taking place on Sunday 2 February. If you haven’t already put your name down, but you’d like to volunteer to help on the day, please email our brilliant Race Director, Mel.
  3. Further adventures in mud:  Our very own cross country race is taking place at Hilly Fields in Colchester on Sunday 9 March. Whilst we hope to have as many club members run the race as possible, we need a good number of marshals to put the race on. Please complete this form to volunteer. Following that, the final fixture of this year’s NESS XC season at Gosfield School on Sunday 23 March.
  4. More 5ks than you can shake a stick at: Our Micky Edwards series starts with the baseline race on Wednesday 30 April. All this year’s dates and full details are online now.
  5. Ecky thump, it’s the Ekiden:  Ipswich Jaffa’s annual Ekiden relay race will take place at Ipswich High School on Sunday 6 July.  As always, we’ll be entering a mix of social and competitive teams to take on this marathon relay.
  6. Running across Essex:  This year’s Essex Way relay will take place on Sunday 7 September and we’ll be entering teams to take on one of ten stages between 5 (ish) and 11 (ish) miles long.

Parkrun socials

Our monthly parkrun socials have been a huge success, so, after a bit of a break, we’ve mapped out some more dates for 2025. We’ll be starting up again in February, with an alphabet themed approach to the first four runs, covering the letters A to D, before we switch to some seaside themed locations over the summer. 

Some of these are local, some of these are further afield, but please feel free to come along to as many as you want and keep your eyes peeled for further details each month.

Runner of the Month

I don’t want to spend too long going into the ins and outs of everything you did last month.  Remember, our awesome team of race reporters regularly produce updates featuring all the latest race results and share them with us on Facebook. 

If you have something you’d like them to include, the easiest way is to share it on our monthly results post which you can always find in the ‘Featured’ section of our Facebook group.

So, last month, while many of us were getting used to the wintery conditions at home (a special shout out to Jon Briggs, who was our sole representative at this year’s Essex Vets XC Champs), lots of you headed overseas to race in the sunshine at Valencia and Malaga marathons. We saw some great times over both 26.2 mile races, with Dan Palmer (4:25:43) and Craig Slocombe (2:52:10) both bagging themselves shiny new PBs. 

However, we’ve decided to award Runner of the Month to James Eyre this month. James has been training hard (he has to so he can keep up with young Flynn) for his first marathon, competing in races of all distances and notching up those long training runs for several months. His hard work and determination have not gone unnoticed, and it all paid off at the Malaga Marathon, where he finished in the fantastic time of 3:24:17. Well done, James, keep up the great work.

James Eyre running along the seafront at Clacton.