September 2024 – Catherine Payne

In September, GRC was represented by 106 runners in 20 races. This month saw a big turnout for two of the club GP series events with Watermead parkrun (where 9 runners gained new PBs) and West Pinchbeck 10k. The club also had a strong contingent at the Great North Run and 53 members taking part in Equinox 24 event with the “A Team” consisting of Samuel Jepson, Matthew Atter, Joe Clarke, Jake Richardson, Russel Whittaker, Riley Maksymiw-Magan, Peter Jennings & Nicola Ruston-Litchfield finishing in 3rd place. September also saw GRC hold the annual Handicap Race where 31 members take part.

Nominees
We start with Luanne Morton, who put in a great performance at the Great North Run, smashing her personal best time by 11 minutes and breaking the sub 2hour mark for the first time running a time of 1:52:46.

We next have Peter Jennings. Peter started the month, running the Watermead parkrun in a time of 21:31 which is a 27 second pb against his previous best time set earlier this year. The week before finishing in 3rd place in the “GRC A Team” team of 8 at Equinox 24, Peter took part at the Ponton Plod event and took on the Marathon option, completing the course in 4hrs21mins. Peter then ended the month at the West Pinchbeck 10, where Peter broke another PB, this time by just under 2 minutes, clocking 44:57.

We now go to Holly Wragg, who decided to give the Equinox 24 event a go as a solo entrant. Holly went into the race with the impressive target of 10 laps (100k) and with no prior ultra experience under her belt, absolutely smash it, hitting her target and still looked fresh enough to do more laps if she had wanted to.

Our next nominee is Caroline Davis. Caroline decided to skip Equinox this year and take part in the Robin Hood 100 event. Caroline finished the 100 mile race in an amazing time of 27:37:30 which put her in 49thplace out of 83 finishers and 14th female.

We next have Peter Bonner, who started the month at Watermead parkrun where he clocked a new PB beating his previous best time by 10 second running in 18:28. Peter followed this up at the Shelford 5k and broke another pb, this time by 23 seconds clocking 18:00 and earning him a new gold standard age grading for the first time.

Our runner up for September is Holly Durham. Holly started the month running the Great North Run is a great time of 1:34:05 which was her best time for 4 years. Holly then took on Equinox24 event as a soloist again in the attempt of completing that 17th lap which has been frustratingly out of reach for some years. With a support team of friends and club mates, Holly managed to start and complete the 17th lap which equates to 105.6 miles. This amazing feat also saw Holly finish in 2nd place in the Female Solo category.

Winner
Our member of the month for September is someone who has achieved something not many club runners will/have managed to do and that is to achieve an international standard age grading. Catherine Payne started the month running the Watermead parkrun in a time of 21:42 and followed that up at the Shelford 5k by breaking her personal best time by 1 minute 26 seconds and almost breaking the 20 minute barrier clocking 20:10.

This performance gave Catherine a Diamond (International Standard) age grading of 92:24%. This performance also saw her earn a UK ranking of 23rd for her age category for the 5k distance.

Well done Catherine and all nominees

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