A TEAM of four Thornbury runners headed to Cheddar on March 11 for 15 miles of running in the Mendips in The Big Cheese fell race.

As is usually the case with these races, the course starts with a long ascent up a steep hill.

The field quickly spread out over the initial, rocky climb and Rob Hopkins was amongst the fight for the top places.

Rob has posted some encouraging results in recent weeks, and was almost ten minutes quicker than he managed 12 months before, to finish eighth overall and first place in MV40 age category in a time of one hour 56:16 mins. Behind Rob, Matt Johnstone was 19th in two hours 5:25 mins, Jim Godden 29th overall and third MV50 in two hours 10:22 mins and Rob Hopkins was 61st in two hours 23:48 mins.

Ros Rowland travelled north for the Hardmoors 55, a 55 mile race through the North York Moors and the Cleveland Hills on Saturday.

Ros is an experienced ultra-runner, but even she was taken aback by the severity of the conditions.

Blizzard-like conditions and bitter winds dropped the temperature to -14 degrees at the top of the hills.

After 42 miles of racing, the organisers were ordered by mountain rescue to cut short the race, as the final climb was deemed too dangerous. Undeterred, Ros will be returning to the same hills in May to race Hardmoors 110 – over 110 miles!

Closer to home, three Thornbury runners raced in the Frampton Globe Trot, an eight mile off road race around Frampton Cotterell and Iron Acton on Saturday morning.

Hopkins was the first TRC runner in 24th place in one hour 10:19 mins, followed by Kevin Cundy (52nd) and Sonya Bryson (53rd), who kept each other company on the course in the same time of one hour 20:40 mins.

On Saturday morning, Henry Orna was running for the first time at the Forest of Dean Parkrun and was fourth overall in a time of 20:39 mins. Kevin Wood ran Chipping Sodbury parkrun in 23:34 mins, followed by Shona Howell, running for the first time on the course, in 33:03 mins and Carina Cobb in 36:36 mins.

The Grizzly is a challenging 20 mile off road race in Devon and has been a familiar stomping ground for many Thornbury runners through the years.

Due to the deteriorating conditions on Sunday, the Grizzly was downgraded to the ‘Grizzly Cub’ over 10 miles. Hugh McPherson and John Grimsey are both Grizzly stalwarts and braved the snow storm to finish in 883rd place in 2 hours 2:49 mins and 1075th in 2 hours 17:30 mins, respectively.