Thornbury Running Club

THE description of the route for the inaugural Doynton Hard half-marathon event captured the imagination of many Thornbury Running Club members.

It gave them a chance to race a good few country miles, having had their wings clipped the previous week when they were needed to marshal their own Riverbank Rollick.

The 13.1-mile Doynton Hard race was hosted by the relatively new Emersons Green Running Club, so it was also going to be interesting to see if they would run a professional show.

And so they did. The route took runners up and down the Cotswold Escarpment a few times followed by a less hilly, but no less muddy section, and finally towards Wick and through the Golden Valley Nature Reserve before returning to Doynton village.

Long stretches of flat terrain seemed to have been used for the recent and frequent passage of cattle, adding variety to the mud.

First Thornbury Runner to cross the line was Rob Cowlard in 16th place and 3rd MV40.

His time of one hour 49.17 minutes was a reflection of the toughness of the course, the overall winner only managing twelve minutes less.

No surprise to see Rob Hopkins following him in, 21st in 1hr 51.22mins, and third for the club was Moray Sloan, 51st in 2hrs 3.22mins.

Ros Rowland was the only female representative, ninth lady to finish and third in the FV45 category in 2hrs 17.12mins.

Also third in category was Steve Dimond, 151st in 2hrs 26.35mins.

Thornbury’s other muddy shoes belonged to Dave Beard (62nd; 2hrs 5.46mins), Hugh McPherson (164th; 2hrs 29.55mins), Kevin Cundy (186th; 2hrs 36.26mins), Arthur Renshaw (211th; 2hrs 42.53mins) and John Grimsey (239th; 2hrs 54.53mins).

Earlier in the week, Rowland had been racing again, at one of the Rogue Runs Night races, this time 5.5 miles starting from the racecourse at Chepstow.

Coming first in the FV50 category, Rowland, as always, enjoyed the challenge of running in the dark, finishing 76th in 51.54minutes.

l Over 5,500 signatures have now been added to a petition asking Stoke Gifford Parish Council to reconsider their request for payment for use of the field at Little Stoke.

There are 380 venues used weekly for the free, timed run that is Parkrun, and the council would go down in history as the first authority to refuse ongoing use of their open space unless they received money in return.

Regardless, on Saturday 315 runners of all abilities joined together to run 5k at Little Stoke, four being regular Thornbury Running Club members.

Garry Slater finished in 19 mins, followed by Chris Dawes (20.10mins), Kevin Arnold (22.14mins) and Jon Welsh (25.22minutes). Karen Carr had her second and best run at the Lee on Solent event, finishing in 27.29mins.