FOR the last thirty years on the last Sunday of January, an intrepid collection of competitors have ventured from far and wide to Wolverhampton to tackle the original Tough Guy.

This year’s edition was the last and Thornbury’s Rob Hopkins swapped Ironman and Ultra running events for 250 muddy obstacles over 15kms, including heights, tight spaces, fire, water and electricity.

Demand for these type of events has exploded in recent years and over five thousand competitors joined Rob in the cold and wet conditions to test their mettle.

Closer to home, Moray Sloan finished seventh at the Kingsway parkrun in Gloucester in a time of 21.05 mins.

A team of four Thornbury runners assembled at the Chipping Sodbury parkrun and first home was Paul Thomas in eighth place and close to his PB in 19.50 mins.

Hopefully Paul can stay injury free this year as he has rediscovered a rich vein of form of late. In 9th place and in hot pursuit was Garry Slater in 20.01 mins.

Kevin Arnold achieved the milestone of racing his 100th parkrun event (21.32 mins) and joins a select group of three Thornbury runners including Garry and Suzanne Cundy who are in the ‘100’ club. Michael Stirrup ran round the three laps of Chipping Sodbury in 31.09 mins.

Thornbury Running Club welcomes new members, whether they want to run socially or to enter races.

The Club meets at the Leisure Centre at 7pm on Thursday evenings, with different paced groups to suit most abilities. More details on thornburyrunningclub.co.uk