Another month, another set of superb results from many members of Grantham Running Club: victories, podium finishes, extreme distances covered and PBs galore! As always apologies if you felt your efforts deserved nomination. They probably did but to try and keep the list relatively manageable tough decisions had to (once again) be made to produce a (not so) shortlist.
The Equinox 24 Hour Race is an event that always sees its fair share of amazing performances and 2019 was no exception. This year saw an increased number of solo efforts from Grantham Running Club members. It wasn’t possible to nominate all who ran solo, but as all performed really well it was hard to make a definitive choice who to pick for nomination. Ultimately, Julie Gilbert and Rosalind Sadler were picked for completing ten laps (some of which were in some amazing fancy dress) and Yvette Taylor, who ran far in excess of what she has achieved before in completing seven laps, which equates to around 43.5 miles of running.
Staying with ultra-running, Jonny Palmer was nominated for the first time as a fully fledged first claim member of GRC for not only winning the Dig Deep Trail Ultra 60 (Mile Race), but doing so in a new course record 9:18:19. Criminally overlooked in the club’s race report (The reporter has been severely reprimanded…). Sarah Chynoweth was also nominated for finishing fifth female in the thirty mile edition of the race.
At pretty much the other end of the distance spectrum two runners were nominated for their efforts at the Saxilby 5K. Fiona Vaughan, a long time runner who has recently joined the club having once been a member of GAC, broke 30 minutes for the first time clocking 29:45. Peter Bonner was rightfully thrilled with his 18:26 PB, the first time he averaged less than six minutes per mile over the distance and his highest-ever age grade (75%+) in eight years and 415 events worth of trying!
Running distances somewhere in between these extremes, Sara Pask was nominated for her 44 second PB at the West Pinchbeck 10K, clocking
1:01:15, as was Cameron Hoggan, who took just shy of two minutes off his 10K PB when he ran 45:12 at the same race.
Also racing over 10K, Matthew Kingston-Lee was nominated for finishing third at the RAF Honington 10K in 33:41, in so doing, breaking his PB by 29 seconds and setting a new (short lived!) club 10K record.
At the Newton’s Fraction Half Marathon Sylv Hull was nominated for her 4:54 PB when she clocked 2:09:09. Michelle Parczuk ran 1:48:37 at the same race to better her old PB by a whisker less than eight minutes. She then bettered that time by a further 25 seconds with 1:48:12 at the Robin Hood Half Marathon, becoming one of a relatively exclusive club of GRC ladies to attain a Silver Age Grade Standard.
Chris Limmer finished third at the Fraction with a fine 1:20:02 then backed that up with a seventh place finish at the Hull Marathon – his time of 2:52:00 less than two minutes off his PB and a fine effort on a course not particularly conducive to running quick times. The same could not be said for the Berlin Marathon course; Jack Dodwell was nominated for slicing nearly seven minutes off his PB when he clocked 3:50:43 at the current home of the Men’s Marathon world record.
The runner-up for September Member of the Month was Naomi Jepson-Rivers who continued the family’s run of success with a significant 50 minute barrier breaking 49:59 at the West Pinchbeck 10K – impressively over two and a half minutes quicker than her previous PB set back in May.
Grantham Running Club’s September Member of the Month comes from the Equinox 24 Hour Race and for an outstanding solo effort that (just about) eclipsed the achievement that won her the prestigious Nathan Walker Memorial Cup at the 2016-17 Club Awards Night. As in 2017 Holly Durham managed to run 16 laps of the 10K Equinox course that meant she clocked an amazing 99 miles. Frustratingly she just missed the cut-off that would have allowed her to run a seventeenth lap that would have seen her break the magic 100 mile barrier. Nevertheless she completed the 16 laps some fifty minutes quicker than in 2017 and in so doing finished a brilliant second in the women’s solo category.
Congratulations to Holly on being Member of the Month for September!