Report by Nancy Powell Davies, Organiser for Essex Stragglers

Nancy Powell Davies member and Organiser of Essex Stragglers, comments:

"Well, we finally made it and were able to run our much-delayed event at Danbury Park. This event was first planned for Spring 2020, then re-scheduled for November 2020. Courses were honed and tweaked to allow two starts so we could handle more entries and then tweaked again to change Light Green start to even up the entries.

What a glorious day it was - the sun shone, flabby limbs were exercised, and rusty map-reading skills rekindled. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves although some had trouble finding the controls on Steve's challenging courses or simply just missed some. It was especially lovely to welcome some new families with younger children on their first event as well as our old friends. All felt a sense of freedom to be out in the countryside again.

The event we’d organised last September had given us some practice in keeping everyone distanced around the starts. Using SIEntries made things much easier on the day with no cash handling and inputting runners on the computer. Hire dibbers were prepacked in envelopes with the names and allocated dibber numbers on the front. The fine weather made it easier for Enquiries to operate with no shelter. Only download had a roof so they could see the screens.

I was especially grateful that the runners observed the Covid restrictions; kept their distance, used the hand gel, wore masks in the toilets, etc. We all seem to have got more used to such routines now. This gives us confidence for our next regional event, an Urban run at Maldon on 16 May."