October Newsletter
Hello Road Runners. First off, apologies it’s been so long since our last newsletter. I’ve been struggling to find any free time and with all the cancelled races it’s not giving us much content to write about. That being said, we do have a few club updates for you, so please enjoy!
Welcome, new members!
Over the last couple of months we’ve had several new members join the club. It’s great to see so many new faces, so please make them feel very welcome when you see that at any of our club sessions. Please give a big DRR welcome to:
Sarah Blackstone
Tom Bond
Lizzie Ashley-Meek
Richard Mercer
Matt Finch
Club Kit Update
As you know, we have decided this year to give all paid up members as of the 31st August, a free club vest/t-shirt. We are pleased to tell you all that our first batch of new kit has arrived and looks very nice! Daniel Clarke is currently holding on to the order, so that we have it available for members to try on and get the correct size and fit.
We will shortly be contacting all members to collect size details and will provide details of how to arrange a ‘trying on’ session, so keep your eyes peeled for further updates or speak to Daniel Clarke at any of the sessions.
Club Sessions are back with a bang!
As you’ll no doubt have seen, our Club Run Leader Sessions have been back for a few weeks now, and there’s been a fantastic response from members, with almost every session fully booked. As well as our usual Tuesday and Thursday runs, we have also now introduced Monday night Trail runs, a longer Sunday social run and our new Saturday 5K Borough Hill run, so there really is something for everyone.
To book your place on any of our sessions, please register on our new booking app at https://drr.clubpal.app. Here you’ll be able to see all upcoming sessions, hopefully a couple of weeks in advance. Remember, even if a session is fully booked, you can still book a place and you will be put onto a waiting list, then if someone cancels you will automatically move onto the session and receive a confirmation email. Also if there are enough people on the waiting list, we will put on a second session where possible.
We’d also love to hear your feedback! On our website, at the bottom of the ‘Run Leader Sessions’ page is a feedback form. Please feel free to let us know what you enjoy about the sessions and if there’s anything extra you’d like to see from the club and we will do our best to accommodate. In fact, our new Saturday 5k run came about after some valuable feedback from Ant Baker.
We are still currently operating with just 3 qualified run leaders and the help of several trainees, who are eagerly awaiting run leader courses, so thank you for your patience, and thank you to the run leaders for giving up so much of their time to put on sessions.
DRR Borough Hill 5K
Last Saturday 24th October saw the launch of our new 5K time trial around a challenging Borough Hill course and I think it’s safe to say it was a huge success. With no signs of parkrun returning, Wayne very kindly measured a route and set up the new session that will now run every Saturday morning. There are currently two time slots available each week, one at 8am and another at 9am with 12 places available on each, but as mentioned this session was extremely popular so book your place early.
Our wonderful volunteers will be on hand to do the timing and you will receive a parkrun style text after the session confirming your results.
10 marathons in 10 days!
As some of you may be aware, Annette Clarke has spent most of this year training hard for a very important event – 10 marathons in 10 days! Unfortunately due to the pandemic and like most other races this year the original date was cancelled and moved to October.
Annette is raising money for the Brathay Trust, a fabulous charity that work towards improving the life chances of children and young people in the UK and if you would like to support Annette and make a donation, you can do so using the following link https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/nettysbrathay10in10.
The event takes place around the scenic route of Lake Windermere and at the time of writing this newsletter Annette has successfully completed 3 of the 10 marathons, finishing the first in an incredible time of 4:28:19. Day two proved to be very soggy, with heavy rain for 10 miles making the course a bit precarious, never the less, she completed the marathon in 4:42:36. Marathon number 3 marks a fantastic milestone for Annette as it is her 50th marathon – what an unbelievable achievement. The weather was a bit kinder for this one and despite a brief hail storm, Annette’s finish time was 4:34:35.
Please keep sending Annette your messages of support and encouragement throughout the next week. You’ve got this Annette, well done!
Strava art competition
A quick reminder that our DRR Strava Art Competition is open until the end of this month. The challenge is to get out and run a route that vaguely resembles a picture or letters etc. Share your entries on Facebook or Instagram with the hashtag #DRRStravaArt and the committee will vote for the best artist(s) once the competition has closed. Details of the prizes will be announced shortly. Here’s a look of one of Mandy’s fabulous efforts as a quick example...
As always, we do our best to update you on all club activity, but with so many members, it’s hard to keep track of everyone’s achievements, so if you know of anyone from the club who deserves a shout out in next month’s newsletter or if you’d like to share one of your memories of a favourite event, please feel free to message me on Facebook or email me at stuart7clarke@gmail.com.
Also if you have any suggestions or feedback about the club as whole or any ideas for things you'd like to see, please also send your thoughts to us. Thank you.
Stuart Clarke
Webmaster