THREE Half Marathons were being tackled this weekend along with the Gloucester 20 as Dursley Running Club athletes prepare for the London Marathon in April.

Two of Dursley’s speed merchants, Mike Crompton and Neil Hodgson, lined up at Reading and Fleet Half Marathons respectively. Their preparations were complete opposites, with Hodgson running a fast 19 minute parkrun the day before, whilst Crompton a more sedate version at Basingstoke.

On race day, Crompton started off very quickly with the first mile in 5:45mins, he finished in a personal best of one hour 19:22mins.

In Hampshire, Neil Hodgson was a tad slower, but he was very happy with an 81-minute half setting himself up for London 2018.

Seventeen DRC athletes competed in The Forest of Dean Spring Trail Half this year.

James Everett, the in-form runner, was hoping to improve on his result from Autumn 2016. Everett impressed getting under 80 minutes off road to place ninth.

Gareth Bradbury, coming off a good run at The Grizzly, led a posse of runners coming in just over 90 minutes that included Mike Brown and Mark Sprigings.

Pete Dunn ran well to come home ahead of first DRC lady Caroline Jones with Jadie Cotterell and Antony Ball just behind. Annette Keevil came in just over two hours, swiftly followed by Rachael Cook, Zoe Fowler, Julie Fenn, Lucy Fairall and Ian Roberts. Vicci Phillips and Rach Goatman produced two great efforts to finishing in two hours 43min Results: James Everett, 9th (7th SenM), 01:19:46; Gareth Bradbury, 155th, 01:34:55; Michael Brown, 203rd , 01:36:56; Mark Sprigings, 255th , 01:38:49; Pete Dunn, 628th, 01:49:13; Caroline Jones, 650th , 01:49:51; Jadie Cotterell, 697th, 01:51:05; Antony Ball, 704th , 01:51:11; Annette Keevil, 1170th, 02:01:23; Rachel Cook, 1244th, 02:04:02; Zoe Fowler, 1246th, 02:04:07; Hannah Carter 1366th , 02:04:55; Julie Fenn, 1599th, 02:11:41; Lucy Fairall, 1609th, 02:11:56; Ian Roberts, 1624th , 02:12:14; Vicci Phillips, 2137th, 02:38:32; Rachael Goatman, 2142nd, 02:38:54; Six DRC athletes lined up at the Gloucester 20, with quite a few using the race as Marathon preparation.

Tudor kept pace with Tony Wooldridge for the first three miles but then had to watch him vanish into the distance.

Damian Lai and Dave Saunders used the race as a pacing session for London and finished strongly; with Saunders confident that Lai will get under four hours at London on this evidence with Alice Lewis finishing ahead of them.

Rob Woodward and Shona Darley both dug deep to finish Darley supported to the finish by Michelle Shapland, the latter just outside the top twenty in her category.

Dursley did well in category placings Wooldridge 3rd MV60, Lewis 5th FV55 and Saunders 5th MV65.

Results: Tony Wooldridge 104th ((3rd MV60) 02:31:14; Jonathon Tudor 147th 02:40:30: Alice Lewis 240th (5th LV55) 02:57:44; Damian Lai 309th 03:07:44; Dave Saunders 310th (5th MV65) 03:07:43; Michele Shapland 358th 03:21:05; Shona Darley; 359th 03:21:13; Rob Woodward 379th 03:26:42.

Neil Hodgson ran the fastest parkrun at Andover.

In all, 35 DRC parkrunners were out there from Kingsway to New Zealand, with eight DRC Juniors running. Lisa Hindshaw, Louise Biddell and Eileen and John Hieron all ran personal bests.

With Garry Strickland and Steve Rugman parkrun tourists at Cardiff, Charley Palmer and John Hookway at Evesham, Chris Ashworth in the Forest and Louis Bowcock in Brighton.

Rich Pitts completed the Bath Duathlon on Saturday the 18th . He reported that it was a “Very tough race in very windy cold conditions” He said the second run into wind was like running through treacle but he was very happy to place first M50.

DRC member Emma Denton is doing an age related running challenge this year to raise funds for the charity RP Fighting Blindness. She is running 40 races to celebrate turning 40, 10 marathons, 10 Half marathons, 10 10k's and 10 family races. Her children are supporting her doing 11 and 9 races each.

She ran her first marathon, The Enigma "Week at the knees" at the weekend; Denton said “Just trying to stay injury free so not pushing it too hard!”