In very pleasant early autumnweather, three members of Waveney Valley Athletic Club competed in the annual Ipswich Half Marathon.
Alan Richardson, a club member for well over ten years, has been in consistent form recently and finished yet anotherhalf marathon around the two hour mark. He clocked a time of 2:02.29 in 649th place from more than 1,300 runners.
David Mower and Paul Harrod took the opportunity to run the race with former club member Lisa Knights. Mower finished 569th in 1:58.55 with Harrod given the same time in 571st.
The weekly Gorleston and Fritton Lake 5k parkruns continue to attract club members and non-members alike. LastSaturday, eleven Waveney Valley members took part in theGorleston event with a further eight at Fritton.
Rob Knights(21:38) and Jo Fisk(27:57) recorded personalbests at Gorleston and Peter Andrews(23:09), James Gooch(28:24) and Tai Elvin-Andrews(22:01) at Fritton. Over recent weeks Catherine Fisher, Matthew Baldry, Sarah Phillips, Carrie Gibbs, Michael Bird, Lloyd Scriven and Tobias Scriven have all competed in parkruns, making their debut appearances for Waveney Valley.
A number of club members broke away from the traditional road and track fixtures recently to tackle the Mucky Races event near Saxmundham. James Gooch, Michaela Gooch, Caren Elvin, Peter Andrews, Suzy Knights, Rob Knights, Cheryl Goymer, Nina Hopson-Pope, Gary Elvin and Richard Pope all took part for WVAC while Becky Langford and Bill Kingaby were part of ‘The Hopefuls’, a team of Becky’s family and gym friends. The event had various obstacles including cargo netting, ditches, ponds and haystacks plus plenty of mud.
Most members helped each other to negotiate the obstacles to reach the finish together, though no amount of help from his team persuaded Bill Kingaby to walk into the muddy ponds beyond chest high, so he reversed back out and eventually
found a way round. All club members successfully completed the 5k or 10k
events, although at least one member’s dread of deep water
meant he had to find a safer and drier route!