Carver Barracks, Saffron Walden, Thursday evening, July 17th: Straight from the press and in record time, the results are in for the 5th and penultimate fixture of the Summer 5K League. Newmarket Joggers’ (NJ) women’s team has maintained their 2nd place out of 8 clubs in the league, while the NJ men’s team has climbed from a tie for 5th to 4th position. Cambridge & Coleridge AC (C&C) continues to dominate both competitions with a strong lineup of runners. Overall, as a combined women’s and men’s team, NJ holds 3rd place, with C&C leading and Ely Runners in 2nd. The final fixture is set to be hosted by C&C on Thursday evening, August 14th, at the Genome Campus in Hinxton, South Cambridgeshire. This season has been the best for the NJ women’s team in years, and the club eagerly anticipates the final fixture and awards presentations in August.

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At Carver Barracks, 489 runners participated, including 196 women and 293 men, racing along the service roads of the old wartime airfield and finishing with a lap on the new athletics track within the base. Newmarket Joggers brought 22 women and 31 men. The top five NJ female scorers were Kirsty McDermott 17:48 SB, 3rd F of 196; Isabelle Talbot-Price 17:59 SB, 6th F; Sarah Osborne 18:27 SB, 8th F; Cerys Bithell 18:41 SB, 9th F; and Carol Cienna Carter 19:33 SB, 18th F. For the NJ men, it was Mark Hayward 16:10 SB, 21st M of 293; Joey Bendall 16:27 SB, 28th M; James Smith 16:44 SB, 35th M; Paul Holley 16:51 SB, 41st M; and Sam Sadler 16:58 SB, 44th M. These leading NJ runners were backed by all the other NJ participants, who reduced the aggregate positional scores of the top female and male runners, boosting the team’s overall score.

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Before the race, Cienna Carter and Tom Elton were presented with the Baz Colley Trophy, for the most improved runners in the Arkwright/Turners Summer 5k League.

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In the Junior 2K race, Sophie Blundell (7:34, 3rd F) and Oliver Hilton (8:17, 9th of 17 overall) both ran their best times this year.