A FIELD of top-class runners, including some from Thornbury Running Club, were on the start line for the Bristol 10k on Sunday.
The race provided an opportunity for slower club and independent runners to race with the best.
With the outright winner completing the course in 29.18mins, Thornbury club members could only do their best further down the field, and by far the quickest of these was Andy Graham in 612nd place.
He clocked 42.08mins for the ten kilometre course and was followed by Liam Jones who crossed the line in 48.42mins.
Andrew Board also finished in under 50 minutes, which is eight-minute-mile pace, in 49.01mins.
Angela Bushell was the first club lady home in 51.18mins and was followed by Joanna Carr who crossed the line in 58.14mins.
A new Thornbury RC member, Becky Cooper, came in just a few seconds over the hour mark in 60.13mins, with Rebecca Dunsford just a little way behind her on 64.16mins.
The achievement by all these Thornbury runners was such at over two thousand other athletes were still out on the road behind them.
Meanwhile, father-and-son team Richard and Ross Phillips combated huge distances and seering heat to complete the Lanzarote Ironman triathlon side by side.
It was all the more incredible as Richard and Philips had been carrying injuries, but together they took on the 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride and full marathon distance race of 26.2 miles to cross the line in 16 hours 23.45mins without a rest.
* Chris Foley travelled north for his second marathon over the popular and fast Edinburgh course.
Running well for the first three quarters of the distance, his pace slipped a little in the final 12k but he still finished third in his age category in 55 seconds over four hours.
* Last Wednesday, Moray Sloan, the sole Thornbury club member, took on the nearby Five Peaks Challenge around Dursley and district which is a new and challenging off-road race taking in Cam Peak, Uley Bury, Cam Long Down and Downham Hill.
Sloan did well to finish the 10.3km course in superb13th place and in 57.23mins.
* The Davies family had their first outing at Carlisle parkrun where Andi finished the tough undulating, multi-terrain 5km course in 18.59mins.
However, that was some way behind 14-year-old son Luke who pushed the leader to finish in second place in 17.16mins.
Mum Nicky followed her husband and son to cross the line in 23.56mins.
At Little Stoke, it was good to see Wendy Fraser at her first ever parkrun, finishing in 32.12mins.
Garry Slater led the club home in a decent time of 19.17mins followed by Chris Dawes in 20.15mins, and Kevin Cundy 23.29mins.
Meanwhile, the build-up to the Thornbury 10k is underway. The race is just over a month away and for full details of how to enter the open-to-all race to be held at 7.30pm on Thursday July 9, and other club events, go to www.thornburyrunningclub.co.uk