What a month so far! May was absolutely packed for Great Bentley Running Club, with members racking up miles all over the country and beyond. From marathons and ultras to parkruns, 5ks and everything in between, it felt like every weekend involved either sunshine, sideways rain or someone questioning their life choices halfway up a hill. Still, with the bank holiday sunshine finally making an appearance, we’re hoping summer has decided to lace up and join us properly now!

The month started strongly at the Milton Keynes Marathon, where Larina Marsh returned for a second crack at the course and was convinced the organisers had secretly added extra hills this year. Despite that, she stormed to a marathon PB of 4:38:22, helped along by brilliant crowd support, live music and plenty of determination. Christopher Thornton was also in action at Milton Keynes, taking on the marathon for the third time and finishing in a superb 3:40:08, comfortably quicker than his previous attempts despite a tough final few miles. Amazing effort all round!

Leoni Harvey took on the Milton Keynes Half Marathon, her first half in two and a half years and straight off the back of her holidays! In her own words, Anyway, somehow this strategy worked brilliantly as she crossed the line in 2:14:31, and snagged some of the best medals I’ve ever seen.

Abroad, Rob Dyer tackled the Copenhagen Marathon alongside Caroline in what turned into a very impressive run. Eight weeks earlier Rob wasn’t even sure he’d make the start line, but the pair stuck together all the way round to finish in 4:00:43. A huge 34 minute PB for Caroline and an unforgettable day for both of them.

Meanwhile Dan Palmer headed into the mountains for the Ultra Trail Snowdonia by UTMB. Calling it ‘a bit damp’ would be the understatement of the year. Dan battled through rain, brutal winds, mud everywhere and over 3500m of elevation across 58.6km, including two ascents of Snowdon, to finish in an incredible 12 hours 52 minutes. With over 20% of the field failing to finish, simply getting to the end was an outstanding achievement, and the beer was fully deserved!

Halstead Marathon once again lived up to its reputation for brutal hills and broken spirits, but GBRC members dug deep and came away with some fantastic performances. Magdalena Komorowska finished in 3:53:38 just two weeks after London Marathon and picked up a bronze county medal for her efforts. Stefan Hogan-Steele crossed in 4:15 after surviving what he described as the ‘monstrosity at mile 14.’ Paul and Debs Hollidge also took on the challenge, finishing side by side in 4:19 and 4:20, although Debs technically won the household competition after coming home with an Essex Champs bronze medal (albeit the wrong one!). Fingers crossed for a swap soon!

There were strong performances across the shorter distances too. Stephen Bullen battled through the Witham May Day 10 to finish in 1:07:45 and 4th M50, before later running a cracking 39:27 at the Colchester 10k to secure 3rd MV50. He also kept the legs turning nicely at the Maldon 5k Series with an 18:55 for 7th place overall. Well done!

Paul Smith probably deserves some kind of award for sheer quantity of racing this month. He completed a bank holiday hat-trick of parkrun, Ipswich Twilight 5k and the Witham Mayday 10 Mile, then followed it up with a 1:53:59 at the Stort 10 despite feeling under the weather. Not one for stopping, he took a leisurely jog for the Colchester 10k  with Lou Balfour as pacer, and continued his parkrun tourism streak with 13 different locations in a row. Somewhere in amongst all that he also managed to run Markshall parkrun with the family, along with daughter Beth for her second ever parkrun. Excellent work from everyone involved 🙂

At Colchester 10k, Bev Shortley enjoyed the cooler conditions and followed Tomasz Komorowski’s pacing brilliantly before pushing on in the final stages to finish in 53:27 and claim 2nd in her age category. Rosie Youngs took on the Colchester Zoo Stampede 10k in support of Mind, finishing in 1:01:49 in hot and hilly conditions amongst a field of more than 2500 runners. I also have to admit (for the second time in this report) an acute sense of medal envy

Further afield, Tim Clifton completed the Helsinki City 5 on Friday night alongside his wife in her first event, before returning less than 12 hours later for the Helsinki City Marathon. Battling Achilles issues, Tim still crossed the ‘Finnish line’ (not my pun, and I’m not sorry!) in 5:13 while enjoying the beautiful island scenery and bridge-filled route. Marathon number 40…or 50 if ultras count, depending on who you ask.

Robbie Lee flew round the Hackney Half Marathon in 1:45:28, while Charlie Keitch made a gutsy return to racing at the Kirton Friday 5 after injury troubles earlier this year. Charlie admitted it was ‘bloody hard’ but still fought home in 34:22 and found plenty of positives to build on.

Our parkrunners also continued to get around this month. Scott Young visited York Community Woodland parkrun and claimed unofficial first male in tracksuit bottoms with a time around 25:57 while edging closer to his 400th parkrun. 

Craig Mitchell and Sarah headed to Roding Valley parkrun where Sarah was first female home in 20:15, with the pair finishing 5th and 6th overall.

Donna and Ella Harris enjoyed the scenery (an extra-terrestrial activity) at Rendlesham, Bee Brent and Laura survived the relentless hills of Christchurch Park, Anna Lyons and Harvey ran Walton parkrun with Anna finishing 2nd in age category in 24:22, while Harvey continued his return from injury with a sub-30 effort. Donna Parker-Evans and Lorraine enjoyed Markshall parkrun, before Donna later discovered that Telford’s definition of ‘fairly flat’ was perhaps somewhat optimistic.

From 5k all the way to Ultras, May was absolutely stacked with achievements across the club. Huge congratulations to everyone who raced. Hopefully the bank holiday sunshine has finally arrived to stay and we can swap the rain jackets for sunglasses for a while. On second thoughts, it’s probably best not to put the waterproofs away just yet…