THE CROSS country season started in earnest with the Gloucester League race on Saturday and the Gwent following on Sunday.

The Thornbury Running Club teams made their way to Little Rissington, minus Captain Paul Thomas who wrenched his back as he was about to leave the house to join them.

Bourton Road Runners had devised a new course with plenty of hills, although the start was a little too narrow for the number of runners in both ladies' and men's races, and the first few hundred yards could have been better marked out.

The field soon stretched out, however, leaving all the Thornbury runners just where they expected to be, a long way from the front.

In the ladies race, both runners could argue that their recent marathon training has been made at the sacrifice of speed work, leaving them a little closer to the back of the 147-strong field than they might have hoped, but both kept up a steady pace with Angela Bushell finishing the 4-mile course 124th in 35.14minutes and Judy Mills not too far behind, 130th in 35.48minutes. They finished in time to report to the men that the going was good with very little mud.

The field of 240 men was led by speedy Stroud and Cheltenham runners, and first to show for the Thornbury team was Rob Hopkins who performed well finishing 129th in 40.03minutes.

Nick Langridge ran strongly to finish 4th MV60 in 42.16minutes, 169th position. Kevin Arnold worked hard for his 220th place in 49.06minutes, keeping ahead of Mike Bennewitz who seemed to be smiling all the way, finishing 224th in 51.51minutes.

Anthony Yates would be the first to admit that he had lost most of the fitness he had built-up a couple of years ago, but he hadn't lost the experience gained, so instead of starting in a mad dash, he inched his way up the field, gaining more places in the final lap to finish 228th in 52.48minutes.

The winter Horton Bull Run was held on Sunday 16 October. It bears little resemblance to the Pamplona event, being a race of around 10km, both on and off road and with no bulls on the course.

Moray Sloan was pleased to finish in 6th place, 2nd in the VM40 category in a time of 43.29minutes.

Kevin Arnold had fitted-in a parkrun warm-up before his race at Little Rissington, running the 5k at Chipping Sodbury in 22.35minutes. Garry Slater ran 19.36minutes over the same course, Kevin Cundy 22.40minutes and Suzanne Cundy 30.25minutes.

It was perhaps a shame that family commitments meant that they were unable to also compete in the cross-country, which would have given the Club full men's and ladies teams for the event.

Anne Palmer ran the Lydney parkrun for the first time in 32.30minutes and it was yet another Personal Best for Richard Usherwood at Stonehouse, his time of 25.59minutes almost a minute faster than last week, paced again by dad Tom in 26.00minutes.

It's good to hear that as from Saturday 22 October, there will be another local parkrun with a new 5k course at Wotton under Edge.