Happy New Year and welcome to the first newsletter of 2026. Before we take a look at some of the shiny new things we have coming up, I’m going to go all Ghost of Christmas Past and look back at the running feats of yesteryear.  And what a great month December was.

We had runners in action all over the world, including:

• Szczecin parkrun in Poland;
• Donaupark parkrun in Austria;
• Aachener Weiher parkrun in Germany;
• Albert parkrun in Australia;
• Valencia Marathon in Spain;
• Malaga Marathon and Malaga Half Marathon, also in Spain.

We had runners smashing out PBs, including:

• Jimbo Thompson, who flew around Hartlepool parkrun in 17:14;
• Mags Komorowska (36:03) and Lou Balfour (41:29) at the Witham Boxing Day 5 miler;
• Jon Mann (3:01:23), Matt Illsely (3:09:51) and James Eyre (3:10:36) over the big 26.2.

We also had runners taking on festive challenges, including Craig Mitchell, who covered a whopping 300km with his Advent calendar challenge and loads of you who were in action at Christmas Day parkruns up and down the country.

Parkrun tourism

Our final parkrun tourism trip of the year saw a horde (OK nine) of you don the festive blue hats as we finally made it to Mersea Island parkrun.  Jon and I have had a great time organising these trips over the past year and so, after a brief break in January, here are the dates for the next few months:

• Saturday 28 February = Gunpowder parkrun
• Saturday 28 March = Basildon parkrun
• Saturday 18 April = Raphaels parkrun
• Saturday 16 May = Chelmsford parkrun

As some of you may have noticed, we’re doing another GBRC-themed challenge with a fresh batch of parkruns and we’ll be following these up with a North, South, East, West theme from June.  We’ll share the dates for those ASAP.

Coming up in January and February

1. It’s our annual awards night on Saturday 17 January, which is taking place at Colchester Rugby Club this year.  If you’ve signed up and paid to come along, we’ll see you there to find out who’s won what and, more importantly, who can bust out the best moves on the dance floor.

• The NESS XC league returns on Sunday 25 January. We’ll share full details, including the venue, as soon as we have them. This is followed by the final two fixture of the year at Halstead on Sunday 15 February and Harwich on Sunday 22 February. It would be great to see loads of you at all three races to help us secure our spot in Pool A.

• Don’t forget it’s the Great Bentley Half Marathon on Sunday 1 February. Thank you to everyone who’s volunteered to help us out on the day.

Runners of the Month

Our ladies Runners of the Month are a dynamic duo who have really embraced hard training and hard racing this season. We love that they seem to bring out the best in each other, and have pushed each other to achieve some brilliant times in recent races, not least at the recent Witham Boxing Day 5. Therefore, in celebration of both their running achievements and the wonderful display of female camaraderie, our ladies Runners of the Month are Louise Balfour and Bev Shortley. Well done, ladies!

For the men, I have pulled the ladder up on my vice-captain and made this decision without his usual considered input for reasons that will soon become obvious. 

One of the perils of being a captain or vice-captain is that it makes it even harder than usual to lay your hands on a coveted Runner of the Month title. However, this month Jon made it easy for me by knocking a whopping nine minutes off his marathon PB.  He’s been putting in the work over the longer distances for a long time now and that all paid off at the Malaga Marathon. That sub three is getting closer…

Well done, Jon, you are the men’s Runner of the Month for December.