On Friday evening, at Great Cornard Sports Centre near Sudbury, it was the third of the Friday 5 mile series of six road races, which are taking place weekly at different Suffolk venues until the 5th July. Five Newmarket Joggers took part in this challenging race, which involved a steep climb up the notorious Kedington Hill and a helter-skelter descent down Prospect Hill. Neville Clarke was first Jogger home in a time of 34:48 and won the trophy for 1st of 6 in his MV65 category by over 5 minutes. This is his third straight category win in three races and his best time of the series so far. Also running well for the Joggers were Brian Munns (38:21), Neil Williamson (38:43), Jim Withers (43:09) and Kate Warboys (50:01).
On Saturday, Caroline McIntosh (1:15:50) took part in the Suffolk Trail Festival 10K at Shimpling, near Bury St Edmunds, doing well to come first in the FV60-69 category over this hilly, uneven trail course. Two other Joggers were involved in the concurrent 24 hour endurance event at this venue, where they ran in relay teams to cover as many 5 mile off-road laps as they could in 24 hours, from midday Saturday until midday Sunday. Sarah Boneham and Lisa Jennings ran in two different teams of 6 named “Holy Fit Not Again” (HFNA) and “Taking The Biscuit” (TTB) respectively, both teams representing Red Lodge. HFNA completed an impressive 150 miles over 30 laps at an average pace of 8:36/mile, with Sarah running all her 5 legs in under 50 minutes. TTB put in a big effort of 130 miles over 26 laps, with Lisa contributing 4 valuable legs. The leading team covered 175 miles over 35 laps.
At Fritton Lake near Great Yarmouth over the weekend, Mark Hayward took part in three triathlon events: The Sprint (750m swim/20km bike/5km run), Super Sprint (400m swim/14km bike/2.5km run) and Standard ‘Olympic’ Triathlon (1500m swim/39km bike/10km run). Hayward put in his usual ace performances in the run stages, coming 1st of 23, 1st of 10 and 1st of 25 in his MV35 age group and 3rd of 167, 1st of 113 and 2nd of 187 in the run stages overall. His times in the 2.5km, 5km and 10km runs were: 9:10, 18:46 and 37:09, all of course immediately following the leg-numbing bike stages. Notably, Mark has also improved a great deal in his swim and bike times, which is evident from his high overall event positions of 9th, 8th and 19th. This has been achieved by complete dedication to all three disciplines in his training over the past 6 months.