And I think to myself, what a wonderful club

Above: Competitors after completing the Stratford half Below: Club members after completing the London Marathon. HOkay, I took my great nephews to see Avengers: Endgame at the weekend. That was long. I’ve never read War and Peace but people tell me that’s very long and don’t get me started on the Brexit deliberations but I don’t think any of these compare to this week’s newsletter. The reason for this is that so many of you lot have been out there doing stuff these past seven days. The club week started for me last Thursday at Stourport where 19 of our Masters Athletes, together with our unselfish and essential officials did the club proud by finishing 2nd in the opening fixture of this year’s Vet’s T&F league. Please read Andy Reeves’ article below. Welcome to the world of press correspondents Andy. Then it was the weekend. Wow. At the last count we had 16 competing in the London Marathon, 3 of our most talented junior endurance athletes qualified for and competed in the London Mini Marathon, 3 of you ran the Stratford full marathon and over 30 of you completed the Stratford half. Oh, and Gavin Bliss ran the wonderfully organised ( I hope you’re reading this Rob and Sarah !) Leicester 10k. The week ended for me last night at the first of this year’s Warwickshire Athletics AA Open Graded meetings where 14 club members stretched their legs and arms in the first of this year’s gatherings at the Coventry Godiva Harriers track. There have been so many feel-good stories this week but I’d like to mention one because I think it not only epitomises the individual concerned but says something about the ethos of our club. Below is an email that was sent to Rob Minton by someone at the BBC, who was competing in the London Marathon. Hello, I wanted to say thank you to one of your kind, friendly and helpful runners at today’s London Marathon. Her name was Emily. After about 400 metres into the race, I realised that I’d dropped all my gels on the floor. I thought this might be a sign of a bad day ahead. I struck up a conversation and mentioned this to Emily. We hadn’t even reached half a mile or so. She kindly offered me three gels and bloks. She did it without a second’s hesitation. The community of runners. I managed to get a PB of 3:37 and that is down to Emily. Pleas pass this on to her. Thanks Chris Anyone who knows anything about Emily Adams will not be remotely surprised by this typically generous and unselfish gesture on her part. Emily’s action got me thinking and I think that this generosity of spirit, this unselfishness, this willingness to help others, even at the expense of our own success, is in the very DNA of our club. Unselfish acts for the greater good. Helping one and other. One for all and all for one is in…