Dulwich Park Runners Newsletter
Hello! After a false start over the weekend welcome to the proper first newsletter from the new comms team on the Committee – Lynne and Jess, with Lizzie and Shannan in charge of our “socials”. Our aim is to write out once a month with a full newsletter, supplemented by a mid-month update when we need to, and regular interaction via Insta and Facebook, perhaps even TikTok in the future. If you have ideas, want more or different please get in touch.
Our main aim of today’s newsletter is to celebrate our amazing London Marathoners on Sunday – Amanda Larrington, Shannan James, Hayley Martin, Karen Azadi, Chris Bloomfield, Paula McMahon, Martha Brownlow all aced it. And also a massive shout-out to our Marshals who gave such good support.
We get to celebrate their achievements at the club night on Tuesday with pizza from 8.30pm at the clubhouse. And remember Tuesday is also our foodbank collection – anything non-perishable please!
Karen above, Hayley below along with our amazing marshals
Some more achievements it’s worth mentioning are Oghene, Karen, Mo and Joe K-P all completing the London Landmarks Half Marathon while Angus ran the Sheffield Half. Congratulations to all. Alex was even further afield tackling the Paris Marathon and acquiring a lovely big shiny medal. David M and Ronnie were also marathoning down in Brighton; a huge well done to both of them and we are all, of course, hugely relieved that Ronnie was OK after what was undoubtedly a very scary experience right at the end of an otherwise fantastic race.
Gareth decided a marathon wasn’t quite far enough for him and, on 13 April (probably the warmest day of the year so far) took on the hills of the South Downs Way 50 (that’s 50 miles by the way!) managing a super impressive time.
Congratulations to Tim M on a PB at the Reading Half last Sunday as he continues his training for the Edinburgh Marathon at the end of May.
Upcoming Dates
If that’s inspired you to get entering, we have loads of races coming up – a full breakdown is in the last newsletter – but remember our 1 mile club championship on Tuesday 21st May – 7.30pm in Dulwich Park. This will be a great opportunity to see us all out in our new 40th Anniversary Club T-shirts and hopefully get a new Club photo. Please do come along to race, run or support. We will also need a few volunteers to help with the proceedings. If you’d like to help please email Lucy at races@dulwichparkrunners.co.uk. We will then head to a nearby pub for a recovery beer or two.
Before then is your last opportunity to help on the Spring course as our Beginners runners graduate on Saturday 27th April, most of them achieving 5 miles, others with an adjusted personal finishing target.
DPR members, helpers or not, are invited to join them for coffee and cake just after 10am to chat about their running, and the club. Come and inspire others to join us!
Venue is our usual Beginners meet point inside Queen Mary Gate, Dulwich Park. Home-bakers are welcome to contribute! It would be useful if you brought your own mug please.
And the Dino Dash Relay is back for 2024 on the evening of Wednesday 12th June in Crystal Palace Park – this was a great night last year and we will get some relay teams together, all paces welcome!
Improvers
Our Thursday track sessions for April are on the newly laid Dulwich College track, with a series of sessions continuing the emphasis on improving your endurance and speed. Looking forward to May, we’ll moving our speed to shorter distance in anticipation of the summer league races.
The sessions are free. You need to be running at least 10 miles per week to take part.
If you are not already in Susan’s list for Thursdays, please email her at coach@dulwichparkrunners.co.uk for more info. Or if you would like help with race schedules, or coaching tips for general running please drop Susan an email.
Tuesday Evening Social Run Routes
All our routes for Tuesday evenings are on the website. To make it easier for everyone to know which routes we are doing we will aim to do them in order. This Tuesday, 23rd April, we will do S2, the second of our Summer routes. Please try and have a look ahead of time to familiarise yourself. There are links for several different lengths of route so you can follow them on Strava.
https://www.dulwichparkrunners.co.uk/routes/
And finally if you haven’t already please pay those membership renewals! Any concerns or worries about money do talk to our Membership Secretary, David Whitehead, as we have concession rates available.
See you next time!