The 2023 season may be drawing in fast, but that doesn’t stop our dream team hitting up the start (and finish) lines with some fabulous performances.

Rebecca Wilkinson chose November to shine at her first event this year, at the Rutland Water Night 10K. With Normanton Church beautifully illuminated runners took on an out and back route along the length of the reservoir, with Bec completing the course in 1:04:48.

It may have been a drab weekend but that didn’t stop our runners having fun at Alton Towers. The popular theme park attraction became home to RunThroughs 10K and half marathon providing exclusive ride access after the hard work was done. Sarah Codd chose the 10K, and put her first Ivanhoe time on the board in 1:00:17. In the 13.1 miler, Paul Averillo, Patrick Horn and Sophie Turner had a ball in 1:55:57, 1:56:06 and 2:03:01, and leaving a cracker of a result til last, we had coach and captain Louis Barnes in 1:39:15 who paced the speedster Georgie Smith to a 3+ minute personal best and first sub 1:40 in 1:39:12 (and 12th female!)

In true Matt Pleass fashion, he’s left standard hunting til the last minute (don’t worry I’ve pulled his leg in person too), and rocked up at the George Munday 10K in search of 37:05. We were gutted for him when he came up three seconds short, but not deterred, he booked in for the Battersea Park 10K (another shout out to RunThrough, their stacked race calendar and copious discount codes) and set the record straight in an eye-watering 36:48.

Also out looking for a 10K standard was ladies skip Gemma Shaw. She had an early get up with horses to be looked after, before heading to Lincolnshire for the Gainsborough event, and ran nearly a two minute personal best in 51:29, confidence growing all the while and we’re so happy to see it.

George Giles has made himself the first Ivanhoe on record to run the Conwy half marathon putting a fabulous 1:35:35 time on his scorecard. He then had another go with his speedier shoes on and set a flying personal best of 1:31:27, finding a surprise extra gear with 5K to go. I agree that sub 90 is the 2024 target George!

Written by Emily Partridge - last updated on 07/12/2023