Blimey what a week!

Rich Shephard having just broken the club record for the marathon. Well done Rich. View this email in your browser Blimey, that will teach me. After enjoying the fact that it was a fairly quiet newsletter week last week it's back with a bang this week, with lots and lots of stuff to report on. The London marathon takes pride of place this week, with many superb performances from club members, including Rich Shephard's new club record and lots of money raised for worthwhile causes. We have a new national champion to report on, with Fern Hordern finishing on top of the podium and claiming both gold medal and national title at the Oulton Park European Duathlon Qualifier. Many congratulations Fern. There's a really important notice from Carolyne Johnston and Michelle Bartlett concerning the junior track sessions. All parents please read it. It concerns the safety and wellbeing of your children and it is also a plea from the many volunteers who take these sessions. We've got informative Triathlon and Road race round ups from Simon Taylor and Stuart George. Thank you guys. There's a report on Maddie Linfoot and Alex Adams representing the West Midlands at the London Mini Marathon. The latest of the club's Couch to 5k courses started on Monday and very well attended it was too. There'a few appointments to make you aware of and finally Peter Coote's latest round up of club records, which is very apt in the week when both the parkrun and marathon club records were broken. Many thanks Peter. Good luck to those of you who are competing in the Alcester 10k and Manchester marathon at the weekend. It's flat ! Indeed, good luck to any of you who are competing anywhere. Best wishes. Take care David Jones Kate Sergent after her London Marathon success. Virgin London Marathon 2021. Report - David Jones It was back with a bang. The actual real live Virgin London Marathon and, as has been the case in the past, we were really well represented. I’ve found 16 members who competed. If I’ve missed you, I’m sorry. Drop me a line and I can maybe do an update next week. Pride of place must go to Rich Shephard who beat the 7 year old club record held by Chris Bacon by 4 minutes. His time of 2:38.45 placed him inside the top 1% of finishers on Sunday. He finished 331st out of some 36,000 finishers. Rich was also 71st in his age category. An immense achievement. Rich commented “ I must say that I do feel like a bit of a fraud, as there’s no way that I deserve to be running a time like that this year. I knew I’d started a bit keen and kept thinking I must slow down a bit and I didn’t. Then at halfway I started expecting it to catch up with me at any minute…. Fortunately this wasn’t until around 24miles. Well done to everyone else who ran. It…