DURSLEY Running Club's Johnny Marks and Mark Sprigings completed the Spartan Super at Aston Down on Saturday.

Marks was fourth in one hour 46:21. He competed the course of just under eight miles with 25 obstacles, plus and lots of lugging very heavy objects around, Sprigings placed 14th out of almost 1,500 runners, fourth in the M30-34 category.

In a challenge of different nature, Damian Lai completed his fourth marathon in eight weeks, and was 35 minutes quicker than in 2016 finishing in an official time of four hours 23.51.

Kate Browning completed the Jurassic Coast Challenge covering the sixty miles (100km) from Weymouth to Exmouth, in a time of around seven and half hours, with Deb MarcFarlane completing the scenic but hilly Northleach 10K.

Sunday saw Dursley Running Club’s Junior Section in competition again at the Prince of Wales Cheltenham with U13 and U11s involved.

The second event in the series saw a bigger turnout for Dursley, with the team including Luke Davis, Jack Bevan, Harry Smith, Tom Smith, Billy Smith William Dance, Charlie Jones with Olive Jones representing the girls. The event started with the girls 600m and Olive Jones showed great composure and an efficient running style as she competed against older athletes, finishing strongly in 02:48.

She was followed by Billy Smith and William Dance in the boys version, both pacing their races well with Smith improving on his previous time by ten seconds. In the U13s 800m event Dursley was well represented with Jack Bevan Tom and Billy Smith leading tight knit group into the last 300ms, having paced themselves well.

Unfortunately, Tom Smith took a tumble, leaving Davis and Bevan to battle it out for first place, with Bevan coming up trumps.

Tom Smith picked himself up and completed the race, Bevan and Davis returning to run him home. Dursley again performed well over 1200 metres with Bevan and Davis second and fourth. Despite limited practice all the Dursley athletes showed good long jump technique, with Tom Smith and Billy Smith showing excellent speed on the run way, attacking the board well.

A tactically astute move saw Davis, Smith and Bevan placing first second and third in the high jump scoring vital team points. In the shorter distance running events, Harry Smith the club’s very own pocket rocket showed good technique over the hurdles and determination over the sprints as did Dance and Charlie Jones.

The day finished off with the athletes giving their legs a hammering on the speed bounce, with Bevan and Tom Smith just short of the winning number of Jumps. All athletes posted personal bests across their events and both boys teams placed 3rd in the team competition.

Neil Hodgson returned to parkrun at Andover recording DRC’s quickest run of the weekend with a time of 18:34. There were personal bests for Andy Hara at Kingsway, Louise Biddell, Alan Honey, Paul Lewington, Lisa Young, Veronica Higgins and Aby Cairns all at Wotton and they were joined by Elieen Hieron who also posted at 78.65% age grading