Good Evening Storm Plymouth!! I’m a bit late for last months update so this is a kind of “brief” update from the last 6 weeks. Settle in with a brew 🤣☕️

Yet again we had an outstanding month in November.
It all began with finding out who we had named as our new club captains! Congratulations to Charlene Matthews and David Kilgore for getting the nod and I’d like to wish you the best for your special year. Great to have both of you on board!

Early on in November we had Storm’s very own Remembrance Day run which was a huge success once again. We had a fantastic turn out and raised plenty of money for the charities. The run itself was a great route out around Plymstock which is somewhere we don’t run an awful lot. Following this we all headed up Burrow Hill to the War Memorial for the ceremony. At this point the heaven’s truly opened and we got absolutely soaking making this one we will certainly all remember. Thank you to all who got involved with this. Well done to the new captains for laying the club wreath. We had great feedback for the club following this and our tributes were welcomed among the gathered crowd. Well done Shelly Jones for organising the day!!

The following week our 22/23 Captain’s Chris Bails and Paula Tapp said goodbye to their roles with their last hurrah at their captains run. Again they had a fantastic turnout from the members who all turned up to say thank you for the great effort that both had put in over the year. It’s clear to see they have both made a major impact on the club and the club as a whole thanks both the skippers. Lovely morning had by all.

Also last month Colin Palmer announced his plans for our club away day/weekend next October. Fully supported by the club committee Col has put in a lot of effort to organise the weekend and the response was fantastic as expected. We still have places available and remember there is a race here for everyone! Drop him a message if you’d like to jump on board.

We have seen plenty of our Storm Strollers in the last six weeks. First off we want to thank all the club members that supported the strollers 5k event last month. It was great to see so many of the runners turn up to help make the event a success. Well done to those involved in organising it. By all accounts it was a brilliant morning!! It’s also been great to meet some of the strollers crew at our club nights. We love having you all at club nights and hope that it can continue to grow and develop that relationship. Having strollers on a club night offers an important alternative to the running groups for people that are looking to return, have niggly injuries or just fancy a stroll and a yap. We also feel that we can help grow the strollers groups with the help of the running club so it’s great to see everyone at the same club night.

To finish off the month we had our ROM evening again at Woodland Fort. The freezing weather meant it was a much smaller affair but still as lovely as ever. We saw Mark Thomas complete a fantastic year where he finally came across as a Stormie by lifting the Runner of the month trophy. Very well deserved too and to think he hadn’t even ran Valencia Marathon at that point where he would go on to have his biggest success to date with a huge PB!! Thanks to Bee Grunow for the video shared on the night.

Our Membership Secretary Clare Collings then held the no expense spared ballot for our very special London Marathon place. A very well deserving Julie Spencer was drawn out of the hat and is the lucky recipient of our golden ticket this year. Commiserations to all the other entrants – looking through that list we would have been proud to have either one of you represent us – all true Stormies!! 💜💪🏻
Good luck Julie we are all looking forward to seeing you represent us in London!

We had a newly qualified leader begin taking our groups this month too and what a start she has had becoming one of the most consistent leaders at the club already. Well done Catherine Brown and Happy 50th Birthday for today!! 🎂🍾

Many Congratulations to Dan Westlake for winning the Armada Network Grand Prix this year! That takes some doing too requiring great consistency across a fairly challenging group of races and against a very talented field of runners. Shout out to Daniel Baugh too who pushed him all the way to finish second! Amazing to have storm represented at the top of the final standings and well done to all that took part in all the local events over the spring and summer 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻🏁💜⚡️🏃🏻‍♂️🏃🏻‍♀️

Both Circuits and Condition fit have continued to get great numbers turn up week in week out and the sessions are always very well received. Well done to Ash, Neil and Bee (with a little help from Andy, Cath and Julie recently)for keeping these sessions so fresh and ensuring everyone keeps on coming back!

Our community efforts have been outstanding yet again with last month’s remembrance run, a fantastic litter pick at Derriford Hospital alongside Clean Our Patch and this month’s ongoing Collection for Christmas. Please keep it coming in as the deadline is not until the 16th Dec. Katie & Bee will be sharing the details again in the next 24hrs.

Big shout out to our daytime running crews who don’t always get as much coverage as the rest of the club but still turn out week in week out. It gives great options to our runners on days off or between shifts so thank you to all who volunteer in particular Tina Tracey Cat and Cath .

Elsewhere, we have seen plenty of runners beginning training plans for the earlier races next year. On the flip side plenty of our members have had a well earned rest recently and who can blame them after a frantic year of races! Stormies have been out running as Santa, The Storm Trailblazers returned running through the woods as they love to do, park runners were here, there and everywhere, marathon running legends Donna and Gary smashed it in Florence, members have been receiving great news of entries to marathons far and wide most notably Neil and Captain Charlene getting a place in the Boston Marathon!! As for the rest of us we have been braving the cold, windy and rainy conditions at club nights!

Awards night preparations continue and we extend thanks to the wonderful social committee for all their hard work so far. Remember you can still get a ticket for our big night in February and we want every single one of you there to celebrate another great year of Storm.

For Christmas this year we didn’t want to organise anything official from the club as people sometimes feel obliged to go. We have asked so much of you all this year with races and collections etc and you have all been fantastic. Instead we have a kind of open night on 15th December in union rooms in town organised by the captains. Christmas jumpers are essential and it’s a chance to have a last little social evening. Entirely up to you if you want to come along but every single member has an invite 😀🎅🏼

Our last club night before Christmas is on 20th December and fittingly falls on ROM evening. It’s a Christmas fancy dress that night so do your worst everyone 🧑🏻‍🎄🎅🏼🎄
This should be a nice way to end our year and have a drink before Christmas. Between Christmas & new year we will put on some ad hoc runs depending on leader availability and then get going as per normal from the 2nd Jan. New year, New goals and hopefully some new runners 😀🏃🏻‍♂️🏃🏻‍♀️

Talking of new runners. My personal highlight of the month is having the chance to run with groups that I haven’t had for a fair while. It’s been great to meet some of our new faces recently and I am looking forward to following your running journeys. Must say a big welcome back to some of the returning runners we have too. Also great to see 💪🏻👏🏻🏃🏻‍♂️🏃🏻‍♀️

Thanks as always for reading the update. Plenty to be proud of as a club like usual. Well done everyone that has been out running, racing and strolling this month. Getting harder now the weather has turned and it’s dark evening but you are all still showing up! Keep it up team 💜⚡️🙌🏻👏🏻

Regards
David McCarthy
Storm Chair 👨🏻‍💼💜⚡️