ONE of the highlights of the off-road season is Dursley Running Club’s notoriously tough ‘Dursley Dozen’, now in its 28th edition.

A committed team of eight Thornbury runners set out in chilly conditions on Sunday to conquer the Dozen’s assortment of relentless climbs, breakneck descents and for the final act of cruelty the rope assisted climb up ‘The Precipice’.

Matt Johnstone was the first Thornbury finisher in 43rd place in a time of 1hr 39.14mins and owes a debt of thanks to a helpful marshal, who alerted him to his fast-approaching team-mate Rob Watkins with about 400m to go.

Matt dredged up the last reserves of his energy and mustered a sprint to beat Rob by five seconds. Rob finished fourth in the V45 category.

Rob Hopkins never misses an opportunity to test himself in this event and finished in 78th place in 1hr 47.48mins.

Moray Sloan followed in 110th place in 1hr 50.57mins, in his second race of the weekend. Kevin Cundy and Hugh McPherson were next over the line in 2hr 16.52mins and 2hr 18.01mins.

Judy Mills finished 2nd in her age group (FV60) and knocked off an impressive 8 minutes from her 2016 time in 2hr 20.44mins.

This was Angela Bushell’s first Dozen and she had a strategy of starting steady and picking up the pace in the second half of the race. It proved a sound tactic as she only finished one minute behind the more experienced Judy Mills.

As well as some encouraging personal performances from everyone, the Thornbury Men’s Team picked up first place in the Vets competition.

This augurs well for the men’s vet team in the Cotswold Relay Race later in the year after finishing second there in 2015 and 2016.

Moray Sloan was one of four Thornbury parkrun competitors on Saturday, finishing in 10th place in 20.33 mins in Chipping Sodbury.

Tom Usherwood finished in 20.43mins in Stonehouse and the Racing Palmers, David and Anne, travelled to Lydney and completed the course in 27.25mins and 32.54mins.