Southwell Running Club
In Memory of Mick
The club held a memorial run for Mick Turley this month which was attended by members of his family and many club members past and present. Mick was a long-standing member of the club and, by the tributes paid to him, clearly touched many people’s lives. Mick is remembered as a kind and caring gentleman who always had time for other runners and always had a smile on his face.
In other news, the countdown to the London Marathon has finally started. It is just a matter of weeks and, in all too depressing likelihood, two to three COVID variants away. Four members of the club are currently lined up to do it this year. Two qualified with good-for-age times (which means they are almost unfeasibly fast), another won the club-allocated entry, and yours truly, who was lucky through the main ballot. (Which is why I am writing about it of course. As one member put it when I told him, ‘Yes, I know. Everyone knows.’)
I say, ‘lucky’, but it did not really feel like that when I opened the email telling me I was ‘successful’. I am sure I am not alone in entering year on year but not really expecting to get in. I am ashamed to report that my first reaction to the news was a sickening wrench rather than a glorious leap in my stomach. Still, I am over the shock now and fully committed to the stringent training plan on my wall telling me, and more importantly my wife, that I must go running for long periods every week.
This is all pretty big fry for me but not, it seems, for most of the rest of the club. Just in the last couple of weeks, and with barely a mention, Ben Parker ran the Milton Keynes Marathon in a time of 3hrs 25 mins (which easily qualifies him for next year’s London Marathon) and Kat Hall ran a brilliant half-marathon time, having already swam for 1.2 miles and cycled for 56 miles at the Outlaw triathlon.
Congratulations to them and good luck to everyone training for their next big event, whether under the radar or making a song and dance of it!
The Scarlett Pimperrunner