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We witnessed some outstanding performances from a host of Pacers in May. An amazing number of Port parkrun PB’s in junior and senior ranks were recorded. Pacers travelled to parkruns and events as diverse as Ultraman and GC30. Added to this Kate smashed the club 5k record, Christine bettered her Port parkrun Age Grade record not only once but twice and Gary extended his half marathon Age wins to 7 out of 7 with the fastest time at the Sydney Morning Herald Half Marathon in the 60-64 division. Our club continues to grow and attendance at our many training sessions sees many preparing for South West Rocks, The Gold Coast and the school athletics season. If you are feeling left out be reassured that all levels of performance are catered for at our training sessions. If you need reassurance try to catch one of our coaches for a chat about how the sessions are inclusive whilst remaining challenging for all ability and current fitness levels.

April saw the Pacer family travelling far and wide with holidays in full swing. Gold returned to Port Macquarie from Newcastle, the Gold Coast, Canberra and a little closer to home at Bottlebutt. Whilst all this was going on the normal monthly competitions continued with strong showings from our junior family and a couple of ladies joining the sub 20 bus (congratulations Kate and BJ). The Oxley Oval cross country superstars is in full swing under the guidance of coach Mel with an amazing group of talented and enthusiastic runners in primary and secondary school age groups. If any other Pacer juniors are interested get down there at 4pm on Wednesday afternoons. Next month read all about the Pacer family and the Ironman race.

Pacers dominated on the podium (or would have if there had been one) on the first weekend in March at the Port RunFest. An outright win for Ryan in the 5k, where Trent also placed, were joined by numerous age category wins and other podium finishes. More pleasing was the range of Pacers out and competing from the juniors right through to the vets. Congratulations all whether you were a 3k runner or a 36k trebler. There are too many to name.

Our usual array of club competitions saw new members Katrina (Pursuit) and Tania (Mile) stand atop the podiums while Jack had a great month winning the mile, PB’ing the 5k and winning Port parkrun. Well done to all.

On the social and celebration sides of things many Pacers were touring around while Suzie reached her 250 parkruns milestone which many of us aim to achieve.

Stay well folks and hope to see you out and about.

February saw the reemergence of the Pacer Train at parkrun where a phalanx of speed is used to help a Pacer comrade achieve their speed goals. Amazing times from Jon and Stevie were helped along by willing teammates. Keep it in mind if you have a nagging desire to run a special time have a chat to the coaches about some serious preparation and training. More outstanding performances from the younger crew at the state 5k championships and the NSW Junior Championships. Congratulations to Ryan and Keelan who ran 5k PB’s including a new club record. Unfortunately there was no record of individual performances at Juniors before publishing.

On a lighter side Binny’s amazing increase in speed has made it impossible to keep him in B Grade so he is now head to head with Ryan again and in a shock turn of events has caught him in the parkrun Age Grade championships. Watch this space for future movements.

February saw many Pacers performing at triathlon events with Hugh winning the 18-24 years men’s category at the Geelong Ironman. On top of this there was a slew of podium finishes at the Trial Bay Tri event as well. Congratulations and we hope your performances have been boosted a little by the work you each do with the Pacers. I know you push others along to greater heights and we are lucky to have such a talented bunch in our club.

Stay well folks and hope to see you out and about.

Speed, speed and more speed were my highlights for the month of January within the Pacer village. From the amazing performances by the junior crew at the Country Championships {where each of the Junior Pacers claimed podium finishes with 7 of them being Gold} to the equally amazing month of speed by Binny (new 5k PB as well as a 21.1k PB) and Rob Fish (3 Port parkrun PBs in a row and then an away win at SWR to top it off).

As usual we had our monthly speed week and Pacer Mile with the long competition this month being the half marathon

Many Pacers made the tourist pilgrimages for away parkruns with Pacers picking up 3 away wins at Urunga, Gloucester and South West Rocks. We covered 4 states in our meanderings in January. Imagine what may have happened if we all felt at ease with travel.

On the social front Pacers were busy with the Hottest 100 Laps on the public holiday a meeting point for young and older. A number of Pacers made it to Queens Lake Laurieton for the Henry Kendall parkrun rehearsal with the opening next weekend at 8am.

Stay well folks and hope to see you out and about.

Parkrun restarted on xmas day so all the local runners had something to celebrate. Excellent results for Ingrid, Daz and Archie who beat their previous best times at Port. Other highlights for the month included the youthful squad at NSW All Schools coming home with amazing efforts. We had an all ladies podium at the Pursuit with the fast finishing back markers not able to run them down. Parkrun Tourism was back in force with Pacers venturing far and wide.

Still no parkrun or sessions open for every member but they are getting closer. Our Pacer events were back big time in a virtual format with the mile, (not) parkrun and 10k run in November. This culminated in a big turnout for the first Sunday distance event of the season. With a change to how we are running the distance events it is great to see the interest (we now have only 1 a month with 8k Pursuit, 10k and 21.1k each being run once every 3 months). Beach 2 Brother was very popular within the club and some massive PRs were run by some members.

Some action shots of Ryan Binskin at the State men’s 10000m open champs held on the weekend. The youngest in the race which featured Olympians, Melbourne marathon winners, the current state 5000m champion. Snuck into 11th place in the field of 24 in a new pb of 32:40. Next up is nsw all schools 5000m in ten days time.

We were back to social and training sessions this month with a return to Pacer Comps that are not just virtual early next month. We still had some highlight performances with Amanda F being the first woman home in the Halloween Dusk To Dawn Trail Run Half Marathon on her return to competitive running after injury. Huge congratulations.

Elsewhere James ran the Run For Autism Marathon raising awareness and funds for helping children cope with autism in a world not set up to help them. A worthy cause we wholly support. Well done.

Meanwhile our Pacer sessions have been popular with Tuesday Intervals and Wal & Talk both recording near record numbers. A big welcome to all our new members and welcome back to all our returning members. Stay safe and we will see you out and about.

Are you tired of solo iso running? Try the daily Run Buddy shoutout each day in the Pacers Facebook page. There just might be a running mate for you to catch up with on your socially distant exercising.

And there it goes … our almost normal running existence is back to Covid 19 running rules but not before some amazing performances within our club. Since our last report James and Steve had numerous brilliant runs smashing their Individual Best times in different distances. Ryan, Jon and Lyndsey won on the road and there were the usual array of Pacer Happenings including Carina’s 250th parkrun.

Stay safe and well.

August Competitions

parkrun News and items of interest.

Amazing as it sounds but the cancellation of the Gold Coast Marathon weekend was turned into the Pacer Port Macquarie Marathon which for all the participants will live on as a cherished running memory. With no fewer than 21 official club finishers in the marathon and 10 in the half it was such positive experience pulled from the ashes. Best summed up by EJ (there are too many thankyous to list)

A HUGE thank you to those who ran with us, cheered us on course, rode bikes alongside, delivered a mobile aid station service, created a great finish experience, had special medals made… the list goes on.

You made a ‘virtual’ experience an outstanding experience

As usual we had our array of competitions. Amanda L became the first dual winner of the Pursuit backing up her win in May. Ebanie and Ryan sat atop the Mile Podium once again. While Leigh, Ryan, Steph, Pete, Alice, Brent and Melissa won their parkrun Age Grade Champions Monthly comp. A large number of Port parkrun PBs were recorded as we approach the end of our yearly championships with Ryan, Keelan, Neil, Steph, Tanisha, Robert, Annick and Emily setting new marks from our senior ranks. Added to this Beau, Annabelle and Theodore(twice) recorded new fastest times in our mini Pacers.

Pacer parkrun tourists were out and about at Airlie Beach, Avondale University College, Blackbutt, Cairns (no photo though), Gloucester, Horseshoe Bay Reserve SWR, Surfers Paradise, Taree, Urunga and Varsity Lakes.

Among the celebrations we had Beau’s 10^th as well as Amanda, Pete and Adam’s 100^th parkrun milestones. Pacers were out on the Elephant Trail with Kate and Molly getting podium results.

August brings more race travels but no one is confident in predicting what will be next. In the meantime keep preparing and hope for the best. Good luck and safe travels to Tamworth and beyond.