Thornbury Running Club round-up

THORNBURY Running Club all but moved to Wotton-Under-Edge for the weekend with the third in the Gloucester League Cross Country races being held at Katherine Lady Berkeley’s School.

The actual course was similar to Wotton’s parkrun course around the Community Parc.

Most of the men’s team arrived in time to watch the ladies’ event, which also allowed them to witness Rosie Allen storm across the line 14 seconds ahead of her closest rival in the ladies Under 17 race.

Although herself not a Thornbury member, dad Steve does belong to the club, so Rosie’s successes have always been closely followed.

For the first time this season, the ladies were entering more than enough runners for a full team in both the Open and Masters classes.

In fact, following the men’s example, all of the runners were also Masters or veterans.

Thornbury men had two new younger runners in their team to add to the old faithfuls.

Jo Emerson, despite suffering from self-inflicted poorliness soon got into her stride, and then streaked ahead to finish in 38th place.

Her time was 25.17minutes, almost a minute ahead of Ros Rowland, still suffering from the after-effects of a cold, who finished 53rd in 20.06minutes, sixth in the LV50 category.

Clare Watt (64th, 27.02minutes), racing for the second time in a week after a long absence showed that she is as competitive as ever, pulling away from Angela Bushell (81st, 28.18minutes). Judy Mills (96th, 30.44minutes) brought up the rear, though as fifth LV55 she earned the best category place of the day.

The already-wet ground was churned-up and muddy by the time the men lined-up for the final event of the day, but being a fairly flat course, there were few problems with traction.

Steve Allen, inspired by his daughter’s performance, was first Thornbury man home in 37.10minutes and 111st place.

Rob Hopkins had already cycled over sixty miles that day but finished, strong as ever for 123rd in 37.45minutes.

Nick Langridge ran a well-paced race, sixth MV60 and 145th in 39.58minutes.

Kevin Arnold’s warm-up had been a parkrun that morning, but he ran a strong, relaxed race, finishing 160th in 41.47.

Sean Underwood was one of the new boys for the team. Being a bit of an unknown quantity, Steve Dimond kept him in sight, expecting him to slow in the latter stages, and indeed, during the fourth lap, Dimond was breathing down his neck.

However, despite his lack of racing experience, Underwood (165th in 42.30minutes) found reserves of strength which held Dimond at bay and even lengthened the gap slightly with Dimond one place and three seconds behind at the line for 166th place and 42.33minutes.

Second new runner Tim Johnson kept clear of his team mates, running steadily to complete the course in 174th place, 44.15minutes, with Jeremy Clothier losing a little ground to the Leamington runner with whom he had spent most of the race, 181st place and 45.47minutes. Arthur Renshaw spent almost all of his race entirely on his own, 184th in 49.43minutes, but still had four runners behind him.

Earlier that day Garry Slater had completed the Wotton parkrun in 21.27minutes, while Judy Mills volunteered as a marshal, so felt that most of her day had been spent in the same fields.

Tom Usherwood recorded the fastest parkrun of the day, 21.00minutes at Stonehouse while Richard Usherwood had another good run over the same course in 25.21minutes. At Chipping Sodbury Kevin Arnold ran the 5k course in 21.18minutes and Chris Dawes in 22.02minutes. David Palmer ran 27.12minutes and Anne Palmer 31.53minutes.

It was back to Wotton under Edge on Sunday, not for a race, but for Thornbury’s own social Christmas event, the Mince Pie Run. Upward of 30 Club members and at least 2 dogs ran or walked various distances through the woods with a visit to the Tyndale Monument (this year lost in the fog), before returning to the Chipping car park for coffee and mince pies.

Entries for the Riverbank Rollick on 15 January have sold out. There will be no entries on the day, and no number swaps allowed after 31 December. Thornbury Running Club always welcomes new members and details can be found at the website thornburyrunningclub.co.uk