THORNBURY Running Club’s Rob Hopkins was out in the fresh air doing what he does best on June 26 which was taking part in the Wasdale X, billed as the world’s toughest extreme triathlon.

The distances themselves are daunting enough with a swim of 2.4 miles, bike section of 112 miles then a full marathon of 26.2 miles.

Now add the interesting bits as the swim is in Lake Windermere – and that’s the easy bit.

The bike route has an elevation gain of 12,000 feet as it climbs all the Lake District passes along Kirkstone, Honister, Newlands, Whinlatter, Hardnott and Wrynose.

That achieved, it is just the run – with another 5,000 feet of ascent from the foothills of the Langdale Pikes to the top of Scafell Pike, the highest mountain in England, and back.

Hopkins’ swim time of one hour 13.09 minutes saw him in 71st place but after a tremendous effort on the bike, which took him seven hours 32.28 minutes, he completed the run in six hours 58.27 minutes to finish the event in 22nd place, ninth in the Vet40 category.

That was an incredible performance but such an effort should not detract from Paul Clark’s achievements the same day where he was competing on Exmoor in the Wimbleball 70.3, a race approximately half the distance of the Wasdale X but still a considerable challenge for most athletes.

Clark competed his 1.9km swim in 39.17 minutes, the 90km cycle in three hours 12.33 minutes and the 21km run in one hour 55.36 minutes to finish 32nd in his category, in which there were 127 finishers.

Closer to home, three club members took part in the Sri Chinmoy GO TRI duathlon at Tockington on July 3, which are two, 2km runs separated by a 15km bike race.

The results make no allowance for the age of the competitor merely showing that Arthur Renshaw was 16th in 48.35 minutes, while Kevin Wood 18th in 49.40 minutes and Graham Bishop 35th in one hour 3.34 minutes.

Without full details being available, it is fair to say that the sum of the ages of these three gentlemen exceeds two hundred years.

Garry Slater was the sole Thornbury parkrunner on Saturday, recording 19.41 minutes for his 5k run at Chipping Sodbury.

This week, while Thornbury will have been supporting Stroud and District AC at the Frampton 10k and Chepstow Harriers at the Tintern Trot, final preparations are being made for the Thornbury 10k on Thursday July 14.

The great news is that the race is full and it is hoped that all three hundred runners will be at the rugby club at 7.30pm, ready for a quick dash through the lanes.

Thinking ahead, entries have now opened for the next club open race, the Oldbury Power 10 miler on Sunday September 11.

Full details of how to enter the Oldbury Power 10 as well as other club information can be found on the website at thornburyrunningclub.co.uk