A Game of Three Halves

Race report news was looking extremely scant until the day before this report when the blues came out en masse in their running shoes. September 7th saw no less than five events that the Bentley massive took part in. But first to the thing that gives me a sense of enormous wellbeing and then I’m happy for the rest of the day Safe in the knowledge there will always be a bit of my heart devoted to it. And if you can;t guess it from that lyric, yes we are talking about Porkrun.

Porkrun

30/08 – Phil Presland ran at Felixstowe. It was his 50th different Parkrun and 99th in total. Fantastic.

30/08 – Paul Davison recorded an impressive 19:22 at Burnham on Sea leaving him in 13th place out of 405 runners. Paul described the course as a breezy burst out and back along the seawall if you fancy giving it a go yourself.

30/08 – Mary Taylor scored herself a sub 28 minute PB at Markshall making her third in her age category. Well done Mary.

30/08 – Donna Evans made the most of the sun in Llangollen, Wales. Donna completed the course in 31:39

06/09 – Mark Jasper torched the competition at Clare Castle taking first place in 18:39. It looks to have been a family affair with Angel Jasper taking second position in gender in 23:44.

LDWA White Cliffs 50 Mile
Tom Komorowska tackled this 50 miler on 31/08 taking on yet another of his LDWA adventures. The route sees you go over the White Cliffs of Dover (no bluebirds were mentioned) through the North Downs and various other Kent national parks. It’s a big thumbs up from Tom who praised the food, scenery and generous cut off times.

Harwich 5k Relays
Tuesday eve on the 02/09 saw this event take place. I can’t find any results for the event, so I assume that GBRC smashed it and took whatever title was at stake away, obliterating all pretenders to the throne.

The Big Half
07/09 saw the annual running of London’s Big Half. The event takes you through four London boroughs – Tower Hamlets, Southwark, Lewisham, and Greenwich. Taking part were:

Paul Davison: 1:29:50
Sarah Davison
Caroline Dyer: 1:53:00 (PB)
Rob Dyer: 1:39:53
James Eyre: 1:31:21
Luke Falconer: 1:34:22
Charlie Keitch: 1:30:41
Chris Smith 1:42:42
Flynn Eyre: 1:24:38 (PB)
Jon Mann: 1:29:42

St Helena Hospice Harwich Half Marathon
07/09 also saw the running of the inaugural St Helena Half Marathon in Harwich. The route is comprised of two loops and is the same course that was used in the 2022 Mayflower Half Marathon. There was even a salty surprise for those who finished the second lap when the tide was in. This is one to look out for again next year as St Helena are looking to make this an annual event. The blues in their shoes were:

Richard Hudd: 1:36:58
Andrea James: 1:38:39 (fourth female)
Paul Hughes: 1:40:47
Mags Komorowska 1:40:44 (PB woohoo!!)
Rebecca Bottrell: 1:50:51
Steffan Hoggan Steele: 1:55:01
Paul Arnold: 1:58:11
Zoe Wolff: 2:05:15
Lou Balfour: 2:05:54
Martin Cotton: 2:12:43
Bev Shortley: 2:13
Mary Taylor: 2:14:25
Yolande Arnold: 2:16:12
Dave Jones: 2:32:21
Larina Marsh 2:26:57
Tim Clifton 2:16:32
I’m sure given the numbers yesterday we are missing many from here. If you would like me to add your result, please comment on the Facebook post or send me a message.

The Great North Run
07/09 – It was the day for half marathons, but this was by far the largest with 60,000 participants lining up in the streets of Newcastle upon Tyne. This one will also go down in history as the one where they got the medal wrong. Surely a collectors item in a couple of years. Lacing up for Bentley were Donna Evans (2:44:19) and Rachel Rodgers (2:53:52)

Essex Way Relays
07/09 – Two Bentley teams entered this event set over the 81 miles of the Essex Way. The event breaks the path down into 10 stages and teams race the path from Epping to Harwich. It was the second event of the day for runners in blue to se that iconic Harwich lighthouse. Bentley teams finished 22nd and 27th overall out of 62 teams. This placed them 14th and 18th respectively in their mixed open category. Lisa Briggs says, “All the runners were fantastic, but special shout out to Craig M, Scott Y and Doug M who all completed two stages (plus Doug did a third one not for a team, but just for fun!) It was a lovely evening out to see our final stage runners Meera and Scott finishing at Harwich Lighthouse too.”

Trifarm Equinox Sprint Relay
07/09 – New member Richard Allen took on this event for the second time in two years. This comprised a swim around the lake avoiding the geese, a hilly bike route and then then five laps running around the lake. Richard managed a seven minute improvement on his time last year.