It was great to see so many of you at our AGM on 2 April. If you couldn’t make it on the night, don’t forget that you can see everything we discussed in the minutes, which have been emailed out to everyone at the club. You’ve also been sent an email about renewing your club membership, so make sure you keep your eyes peeled for that.  As always, if anyone has any issues paying their membership for the year, please do speak to anyone on the committee and we’ll see what we can do to help. 

Right, before you all scroll down to the bottom to see if you’re one of our Runners of the Month, there are just a few reminders from me.

• The new spring/summer training schedule will be out soon, with details of all the sessions coming up over the next few months.  Our run leaders make sure that sessions are suitable for everybody, so please don’t worry about pace – just come along and join in.
• Our next parkrun social will be at Chilton Fields parkrun on Saturday 26 April, and on 24 May we’re heading to Dartford parkrun (more details on that coming soon). Please do come along to enjoy some parkrun tourism and a nice chat afterwards.
• The first of our 5k Micky Edwards series takes place on Wednesday 30 April. These are FREE 5k races for Great Bentley members only. Find out more and see all the other dates for the series.
• Just like we have with our combined newsletters, this year we’ll be joining forces to announce our XC runners of the year. So, make sure you join us at Great Bentley on Wednesday 21 May for a run, followed by a social trip to the pub and the eagerly anticipated announcement of who stood out from the crowd at XC this year. More info and voting details coming soon.
• The popular Friday 5 series kicks off in Felixstowe on 23 May. Our own Friday 5 is the final race in the series and will take place on Friday 4 July – please do not enter this one as we will need lots of volunteers to make sure it is a huge success.
• Quick on the heels of our Friday is the Ipswich Ekiden, which sees teams of six completing a relay marathon. Please keep the date free as we’ll once again be entering lots of teams into this popular event.
• Finally, we now have a date for this year’s Geoff Day Memorial 5k – another highlight of the GBRC calendar. This race will be taking place on Saturday 17 August, so another date to keep free in your calendar.

What the ladies did

March has been an amazing month for the ladies, with so many great performances to choose from. Shout-outs must go to all of our ladies who faced the perils of the Grizzly, as well as those who took on the Colchester half marathon, including Kelly Hayhoe who achieved a shiny new PB.

Well done also to those ladies who represented us at XC in the final two NESS fixtures at Hilly Fields and Gosfield. Maddie Clifton scored for the ladies team in her very first XC at Gosfield, and Captain Meera somehow managed to run both fixtures and be Race Director for our race at Hilly Fields, a mere week after finishing on the podium of the Chelmsford 10k. It was also wonderful to see the ladies team of Maddie Clifton, Lindsey Allen and Donna Parker-Evans take victory at the Dave Wright 7.5 mile race at the end of the month.

What the men did

The month started off with a fantastic performance from Gethin Hughes at the Tokyo Marathon. Hopefully we’ll see much more of Gethin in his Bentley Blues this year. We had six runners take on the monster that is The Grizzly on Devon’s Jurassic Coast, whilst closer to home we turned out in force at Hilly Fields to finish second in the men’s XC race with some fantastic performances across the field.

Colchester Half Marathon saw new PBs for Gavin Byrne, Billy Hamilton and Richard Hudd, whilst Jon Mann, Justin Hayhoe and Dave Allen claimed the team prize at Dave Wright’s Colchester 15 mile Road Race.  I also want to give a special shout out to Craig Mitchell who put in a fantastic performance in both of our XC races in March, finished the Colchester Half well inside his sub 90 minute target, and has continued to put in some standout performances into April.  Well done, chaps.

Runners of the Month

For the ladies, one young person really stood out. She has been a superstar representing the GBRC girls at NESS XC this season, running her heart out at all four fixtures and even breaking the top 20 in the final fixture at Gosfield. On top of that, she’s shown her speed over 5k at parkruns this month, including the impressive time of 23:32 at Burnham-on-Crouch on 15 March, where she was the second female finisher. No doubt there is lots more to come in the future from this talented runner … our Runner of the Month for March is Angel Jasper.

And, keeping it in the family, our male Runner of the Month is Mark Jasper.  Mark is a true XC stalwart and has put in some truly fantastic performances this year, including two in March.  These results have helped him claim the third place trophy for the season overall which goes to show just how great an XC runner Mark is. If that wasn’t enough, he has now competed in every single NESS XC fixture for the last ten years.

Mark and Angel, we salute you!