September’s Member of the Month award is presented to Alan Cowan.

Alan has been an active member of the club for many years, regularly representing the club in HRRL, Lakeside 5k, CC6 and RR10 races.  

However, more recently Alan has contributed a great deal of his time to leading sessions on Tuesday and Thursday evening, including regularly standing stepping up on days when there have been a shortage of run leaders.  He then decided to go one step further, and in September completed his Coach in Run Fitness qualification, and can be seen applying all his newly acquired knowledge and skills at the Tuesday Intervals Ageas Sessions.  If that wasn’t enough, he also volunteered to become a member of the Running Steering Group Leadership Team, giving up even more free time to further the development of the club.

​Many thanks Alan for all of the time and energy to have dedicated to the club over the years.

July’s Member of the Month Award is presented to Bridget Gregory.

Until enrolling in the Beginner’s Group 3 years ago, Bridget had done no running at all.  Since then, she has been committed, attended training and accomplished amazing things.

She has run Endure24 as part of a team the last 3 years, and for the past 18 months has run a half marathon, mostly on trail courses, virtually every month, including the Resolution Run, Batty Bimble, Winter Festive Frolic and Larmer 20.

She also comes along to cheer other members on when they’re racing or running even when she’s not, and she often
stays to the end of a race to support the slower runners, something that is highly appreciated! 

Congratulations on your amazing achievement Bridget!

June’s Member of the Month Award is presented to Helen Borrett.

Helen has absolutely smashed her PBs in all distances from 5k up to marathon over the last 6 to 7 months.  Recently, her focus and determination has seen her knock over 4 minutes off her half marathon PB at the Southampton Half Marathon and 3 minutes off her 10k PB at Eastleigh 10k.  She has represented the club over the winter at the x-country races and has also achieved her furthest distance running by completing her first ultra-marathon at the Pony Express in September last year.

She is also an active member of the club and regularly takes on the role of run leader on a Thursday night where she is great at encouraging members to step out of their comfort zone and push themselves to see what they can achieve.

Many congratulations Helen, and thank you for your enthusiasm and encouragement to other members.

May’s Member of the Month Award is presented to Nigel Lee.

Nigel is a very supportive member of the club.  He regularly encourages and cheers on other members of the club, and is very good at noticing when someone is struggling and quietly encourages and runs alongside them without being pushy.  At Alton 10 in May, he sacrificed his own time to run alongside another Hedgie and keep them going when they felt like giving up.

He has also been exceptionally supportive of other members of the club in their preparations for races, going out of his way to deliver specialist running fuel that he thought would be useful to another member.
Nigel also recently completed a marathon distance at On the Whistle 'Revenge of the fifth' without planning to complete that distance

Congratulations Nigel, and thank you for embodying so many of the values that are a part of HERC.

April’s Member of the Month Award is presented to James Kinley

James has regularly supported HERC in league races for many years, but juggled running training with cycling and swimming training in order to complete Ironman Triathlons.

He has always given 100% in training; to quote the person who nominated him “I have never been in the gym without James being there, and I’ve been a member for 12 years.”

Last year he decided to focus more on running, and has seen significant improvements in his performances; in particular running a sub-3 hour marathon at Berlin in September last year.  His hard work and dedication continued over the winter, and resulted in him running 2:52:08 at the Manchester Marathon in April, the second fastest marathon by a Hedgie.

Many congratulations James.

March’s Member of the Month Award is presented to Aurelio Bello.

Aurelio’s running achievements along are worthy of a Member of the Month award; he has completed over 100 marathons and 350 parkruns, along with representing the club at numerous road and cross-country league races.  But on top of this, he regularly sacrifices his own performances to support others and enable them to achieve their goals.  In fact, he’s volunteered nearly 500 times at parkrun, many times as tail walker in order to ensure everyone taking part has an enjoyable run.

Aurelio is always encouraging to others, be it at training sessions or the events he takes part in.  He really epitomises the Hedgie spirit by believing in and supporting others even when they don't believe in themselves.

​Many congratulations Aurelio and thank you for your tireless efforts supporting other runners.
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​One of the favourite topics amongst my running friends is the number of times they've entered the ballot for VLM and not got a place. It's on the bucket list for lots of people.  I got tired of entering after 5 attempts and went off to do Paris (a brilliant venue for a first marathon) and Hull (for sentimental reasons, my old university city) but the desire for London never went away. Every year I would enter and expect the dreaded rejection email. 

This year was no different...except the story changed when HERC announced their names drawn from the hat. Woohoo!! It was finally my turn. 

Having followed a beginner plan a couple of times, I chose the improver plan from the VLM site by Martin Yelling. The plan has 4 sessions per week, a schedule I felt was achievable. Once I start a plan, I'm OCD about following it, unlike any other aspect of my life (OCD is not a term I'm usually associated with!).

I'd previously found the mid-week runs difficult in the evenings, too cold, too dark, too tired...you get the picture. I decided to try a new early morning approach, still too cold and dark but at least I wouldn't be tired, eh?

All went well for weeks, even the early mornings were ok (yes, I was shocked too). The training plan talks a lot about being in tune with your heart rate so I used it to ensure I was working at the right effort levels. The long runs called for an easy pace and this meant I slowed down considerably to keep my heart rate low enough. It didn't feel like I was working very hard, ideal.

Week 8 - on my recovery run and my ankle started to hurt. I didn't think much of it until the following morning when it was too painful to walk. 

And that's where the training ended. I followed all the advice to rest, sure that I'd be back pounding the streets soon but it took 3 weeks to walk properly and another 2 before I could take the impact from jogging. I saw a podiatrist and she explained that I had been overpronating, probably due to a shorter stride pattern on the longer runs. 

It was hard to accept that I wouldn't be ready for the VLM, I spoke to friends about possibly using a run/walk strategy but I wasn't fit enough for that. I particularly felt like I'd let all the other members of HERC down, having taken a treasured VLM place. 

I tried to see the positive side, it took a while but I got there eventually. 

1. I have a guaranteed place for next year and I'll still be able to represent HERC. 

2. I've discovered that morning running in the week works for me. 

3. I've also found out that slower running isn't always better. 

4. My injury isn't permanent and I'll still be able to run, something I never take for granted. 

See you next year for, hopefully,  part 2 of my report. 

My plan for London was to get in via a good for age (GFA) time as I had one prior my knee operation, but two months before the closing date the organizers decided to move the goal posts and my GFA time was no longer good enough.  At this stage I decided I would do Boston instead (15th April).   I put my name in for the London place not really thinking about the consequences of doing so, but here I am with 13 days between Boston marathon and London marathon.

Training started with just easy miles in the legs ending up with the Portsmouth Coastal marathon in December which i finished in 3.22 which was a good run considering my buildup.  The target for April was a sub 3 hour marathon (accountability here we are)

I decided to follow a proper plan and decided to go with the Jack Daniels (no - not the drink!) book.  This is broadly pick your own mileage but each week there would be 2 hard sessions.  I picked my peak mileage of 100km (~62 miles) and started to follow the plan.  The first session was 6 miles easy then 6x1km followed by another 3 miles easy so about 14 miles in total. I remember finishing this session and wondering what i had got myself into as this was the hardest "long run" I had ever done, especially in January when it was freezing cold.  With a certain amount of determination I did all of the required sessions following the plan exactly until my first race of the year. 

In March I did Bramley 20 with the idea of doing this at marathon pace to get an idea of fitness and mentally prepare myself for running at pace for 2 hours plus.  Coming down with illness on the day of the race wasn't part of the plan. I remember getting to about 10k and feeling rubbish ,tired and generally wondering why i was running. In the end i pushed round to 17 miles before I stopped, re-grouped and jogged in.  Although at the time I was disappointed not doing the full 20 miles at pace in hindsight it was still a useful run.  

Training continued well until 3 weeks before Boston when I came down with tonsillitis and missed my first week of training. I didn't feel great and didn't miss training whatsoever. Perhaps this was a way of my body asking for a rest?  Recovered form that and then promptly injured myself in taper week and here I am now resting as much as possible hoping I'll recover by Boston. 

The plan between Boston and London?  No idea, if anyone has any hints or tips for running 2 marathons within 2 weeks please let me know!

Even thought the last 2-3 weeks of training haven't been great I'm looking forward to the big city marathons with the hustle and bustle that comes with lots of support and the associated noise.