THE HIGHLIGHT of the weekend for Dursley Running Club was the Cotswold Way Relay, in its 25th year the race attracted 97 teams.

Despite injuries the club fielded four full teams, a male senior, male veteran and two mixed teams.

The conditions where reasonably favourable with a hot spot around lunchtime but a strong breeze cooled runners throughout the day.

All the teams put in magnificent efforts, especially the last-minute entrants who had not been able to reconnoitre the route or train for the distance and elevation.

The senior men’s team as expected had some excellent stage results with James Everett highest placed Dursley Runner, 3rd overall on Stage 8, with Mike Crompton and Tim Britton both placing sixth on their stages and for the veterans Dave Durden placed 10th on stage 7.

The seniors ended a creditable seventh in their category.

The day started well with Dave Wood and Gareth Bradbury sneaking into the top 30 finishers for the senior men on the first two legs. Mark Brasier then upped the ante with 21st on leg 3. On the following stage Mike Crompton ran strongly to place 6th, he felt he could not have made up any more places with the 5th placed runner creating too large a gap to pull back. Margaret Johnson had a strong run on Leg 2 finishing 7th female, and Kim Bird ran well on Leg three, 12th female home. On stage 5 Neil Parry running for the male vet.s pipped Steve Watson home. Caroline Jones ran in 10th female on the stage, another strong run for the Dursley Gazelles, mixed team.

Dursley had a strong showing on Stage 6 with all finishing in the top 50, Tim Britton in an excellent 6th, Kevin Jackson, 23rd, with Matt Read and Simon Jones supporting .

On stage seven Joe Browning, struggled in the heat, he was caught by Durden and Nigel Sankey on the Golf Course, he manged to pass Sankey, but not catch Durden who was first into Wotton.

Stages 7 and 8 saw a number of strong runs with James Everett the highest placed DRC runner of the day, late replacement Martin Bragg had a great run based on very little knowledge of the route, placing 45th and Andy Truswell did well to finish having turned his ankle on the first long descent of the leg.

Tony Wooldridge led the teams home to Cold Aston in an excellent 23rd position, Mouse Clutterbuck worked very hard to come in three minutes behind him in 33rd. Zoe Lamerton and Alice Lewis also ran well, with Zoe placing 12th female on the leg.

The final saw the quartet of Tony Freer, Neil Truelove, Rob Woodward and Dave Saunders taking in the applause as they reached the Abbey, Freer had a fine run, recording a personal best and finishing in 19th. Dursley’s ultimate “Lanterne Rouge” was Rob Woodward.

The Seniors were unsurprisingly way out in front with the Gazelles (mixed) team pipped the Veterans by seven minutes to be second DRC team home.

Results: Dursley Cheetahs, Senior Men 13:27:58, 7th Senior Men’s Team; Gazelles, (Mixed A), 15:57:15, 24th Mixed Team; Dursley Eagles, Veteran Males, 16:04:12, 11th MV; Springboks (Mixed B) 17:11:53, 48th Mixed Team.

Chippenham 10k Mark Spriggings finsghed first for Durlsy eas good turnout and louise beck completed the whole race without stopping for only her second ever time as she was paced round by Rachel Thomas, Nicki squire was second home with a good run in almost unrunnable conditions. Understandably CWR was the big event Sunday saw Neil Hodgson completed the Round Sheffield multi-stage enduro-trail run with army colleague Mark Millns, placing 38th overall and ninth in the pairs competition in 01:18:39 over a total of 13 miles racing, with perhaps another kilometre or so in transition stages.

At the Boddington Marathon Mark Sprigings ran a 03:51 race despite an injury whilst at the 10K four DRC athletes ran with Damian Lai first home in just over 53 minutes also running were Pete Brown, Mike Thomas and Kelly Gabb.

Jadie Cotterell, Charlotte Palmer, Tony Ball and Steve Barnes completed the Torbay Half Marathon with Cotterell fisrt home in 01:53:51. Also on Sunday three DRC athletes took part in the Oldbury four mile fun run in aid of CLIC sergeant, Hannah Carter, led the team home in 33.05, followed by Dominique Sarah Pemberton in 35.06 with Nicki Cowle just two seconds behind.

Twenty-eight DRC runners completed a parkrun on Saturday at the weekend with three runners under 20 minutes led by Neil Hodson at South Manchester in 19:02, Tim Ennis first home for DRC and second overall at Wooton in 19:32 with Nigel Burford just behind him, with an impressive 77.8 age grading, both running PBs.

Other parkrun PBs were Tracey Strickland and Pete Wintle also at Wotton, Deborah Moulder at Kingsway and Soos Moss at Pomphrey