THREE Thornbury teams of ten runners each joined forces on Saturday to tackle the 25th anniversary of Cotswold Way Relay.

The race traces the Cotswold Way Path, setting off from Chipping Camden early in the morning and finishing in front of Bath Abbey as the sun sets and after 103 miles.

The overall course is split into ten back-to-back races with the lowest total time of all ten runners deciding which team wins.

The event continues to gather in popularity and this year, one hundred teams vied for Senior Men’s, Ladies, Mixed and Veteran Males (forty years and over) prizes.

Thornbury entered two teams in the mixed and a Male Vets team.

The Male Vets team had punched above its weight in this competition against bigger clubs and were second for the last two years.

They went into this year’s competition with realistic ambitions of winning and at the halfway mark were leading the 16 teams with host club, Bath Vets, in hot pursuit.

Agonisingly, after 13 hours of racing, the Vets team succumbed to the greater depth of Bath by less than three minutes, finishing in second place yet again in their fastest overall time yet of 13:14:36 hours.

The first of the mixed male and female teams finished in 13th out of 67 teams in 15:01:52 hours and the second mixed team was 49th in 17:13:52 hours.

Special mention goes to Mike Bennewitz and Judy Mills, who helped to organise Thornbury’s 2017 challenge. Also, the extra special honour of being crowned King and Queen of the Cotswolds is awarded to those who have completed all ten stages of the relay.

This year’s inductees to the Royal Enclosure were Martyn Green, Nick Langridge and Judy Mills.

Dave Beard has already qualified for one of the most prestigious and gruelling ultra-marathons in late August, the Ultra Trail CCC.

This Alpine adventure starts in Italy, crosses into Switzerland, before finishing one hundred kilometres later and with 6,100m of racing uphill in the French alpine resort of Chamonix.

Dave’s preparation for the race took him to Somerset to run the thirty-mile Conquest of Avalon, from Castle Cary to Glastonbury. Dave completed the course in 7:11:05 hours in tenth place, finding time to have a recuperative beer at the 26-mile mark!.

During the heatwave of last week almost five hundred runners assembled on the starting line of Chippenham’s Longest Day 10k with the temperature gauge hitting 30 degrees. Rob Cowlard has been doing more speed work and put it into practice by finishing 3rd overall out of almost 500 runners in 37:34 mins. Rob was joined by Alastair Whiteway (96th, 50:38 mins) and David Flemington (327th, 1:08:24).

On Sunday, there were at least 12 Thornbury runners taking part in the Oldbury Fun Run. This race is contested over 3.8 miles on the rolling country roads and is a firm favourite for all the family.

Newlyweds Nick and Lizzie Williams were the first finishers for the club in 5th and 49th place overall. Lizzie finished 5th female.

With an eye on the future, there were 3 runners in the under 13 category being accompanied by their parents. Emma Cowlard seems to be a chip off the old block, as she out-sprinted her Dad at the end. Eve and Faith Slater had a great day out and completed the course with their parents trailing in their wake.

Kevin Arnold was making his comeback after injury and was 34th at the Bath Skyline parkrun in 23:49 mins. At Chipping Sodbury parkrun Karen Carr led the way in 94th place and 17th female in 26:05 mins, followed by David Palmer in 27:23 mins (138th) and Anne Palmer 32:59 mins (219th and 89th female).