THERE was another well-deserved victory for Thornbury Running Club's Ros Rowland in her second race of the week on Saturday.

The final event in the Gloucester Cross Country League was held at Warwick University, and although the ladies team had long since been out of the running, Rowland had set her sights on an individual age category medal and was not disappointed.

The 7.3k course was sufficiently challenging and Rowland worked hard from the gun to finish the race first in the LV50 category, 29th overall in a time of 35.48minutes.

Having missed race one and with the best positions in three of the four races to count for a medal, Rowland, who last season won bronze in the same category, needed a good score, so was delighted to have moved up a place to gain silver.

Support on the day came from Angela Bushell who finished 59th in 42.14mins, and it was agreed that the journey was worth it for the facilities and refreshments available.

l The Thornbury men having produced a team at all four events did well with a final league result of eighth place, their Masters team performing a little better in seventh.

On Saturday, it was Rob Hopkins who scored most points for the team, completing the 10.1k course 51st in 43.29mins, just ahead of club captain Jim Godden, 53rd in 43.37mins.

There was then a gap before Dave Beard, 90th in 49.14mins who had managed to keep ahead of MV60 regular Nick Langridge, 95th in 49.59mins.

Another gap, then Jerry Clothier, 122nd in 57.29mins crossed the line a minute ahead of Pete Mainstone, 124th in 58.23mins.

Missing from the line-up was Mike Willis, but a good performance in the first three races of the season saw him take the bronze medal in the MV60 category for the season, not too many points ahead of fourth place Nick Langridge who would claim a moral victory by completing all four races.

Rowland's first outing of the week was at the night Rogue Run starting from Beechenhurst Lodge in the Forest of Dean on last Thursday.

Jo Plumbley was persuaded to accompany her, and the the pair reversed their placings from the previous week's cross country with Rowland finishing first FV50, 66th in 49.08mins and Plumbley not far behind, perhaps less used to running in the dark, 82nd in 51.18mins.

Both still made it back to Thornbury in time for a meeting of the Club Committee!

Of the race choices available on Sunday, Kevin Arnold opted for the Two Bays Tough Ten Challenge, a longstanding, 10-mile multi-terrain race, and arguably a misnomer, since compared to many courses, it doesn't really qualify as 'tough'.

With a time of one hour 27.51mins he was 298th overall, still struggling to push his pace over longer distances.

This year's events at Castle Combe race circuit also started on Sunday with two Thornbury finishers in the 10k event. Liam Jones (49.24mins) seemed to lose focus until seeing Selina Slater (49.55mins) on his shoulder when he found the energy to avoid being beaten by a girl.

Arthur Renshaw chose the duathlon where he performed well, finishing 4th in the SupVet60 class over a 2 mile run / 10 mile bike / 2 mile run course.

His total time was one hour 4.49mins with the transitions again his weakest and relatively slowest discipline.

As usual, the traffic free, flat course was notable for the blustery conditions.

Saturdays parkruns saw Anne and David Palmer joining the volunteer corps at Chipping Sodbury where Anne was tail runner.

At Little Stoke Garry Slater was first man home in a time of 19.41mins, ahead of Chris Dawes, 19.50mins. Kevin Arnold in 22.19mins may have been keeping some back for the following day but was still ahead of Kevin Cundy, 22.50mins and Jon Welsh 23.34mins.