THORNBURY Running Club’s Joanne Plumbley, Dylan Roberts and Taryn Roberts were out in the hillside last weekend and took part in The Butcombe Trail.

Saturday’s run was a daunting 50-mile race through the Mendip hills and surrounding villages.

All three athletes have competed in multiple Ironman triathlons between them and are used to taking on big challenges like Saturday’s race.

And the trio of Thornbury Running Club athletes acquitted themselves very well in the wet and windy conditions to finish in equal 35th place in a time of ten hours 38:42 mins.

Meanwhile, Saturday morning’s parkrun featured a first female result for Laura Orna in Thornbury and ninth overall in a new personal best of 23:27 mins.

In the same event, Peter Blenkiron knocked more than three minutes off his best time in 29:54 mins and Leighton Prescott ran 36:28 mins.

Chris Dawes ran at Eastville parkrun for the first time and finished in 22:03 mins.

Jim Godden blew off the cobwebs with a 19:49 mins run at Chipping Sodbury parkrun, followed by Kevin Wood 22:12 mins and Clare Evans 28:21 mins.

And Janet Gaze ran 30:44 mins at Weymouth parkrun, while John Grimsey finished in 31:39 mins in Burnham and Highbridge parkrun and Carol Mosses ran 41:05 mins in her effort at Birkenhead.

Over in South Wales, the city of Newport hosted its first full marathon in cold conditions on Sunday morning.

Almost 3,500 runners took part in the marathon around a flat course which started and finished from the city centre and took in the flatlands of East Gwent around Magor.

And, in addition to the 26-mile event, a further 2,500 entered a 10k run and family mile.

There were a few early hiccups in its inaugural year and the race was pushed back by 30 minutes, leading the runners to seek warmer refuge in the surrounding buildings next to the start line.

The course was billed as a quick one and the local people came out in force along the route to cheer the runners along.

Matt Johnstone was the lone Thornbury RC entrant on the day. After a more cautious start, he tried to increase the pace in the second half of the race and started to overtake more runners.

However, this increased optimism came face to face with the infamous ‘marathon wall’ at the 24-mile mark and the final two miles was a painful experience. Matt finished in 203rd place in three hours 15:40 mins.