Thornbury Running Club has enjoyed a huge increase in membership since the new year and has over 200 athletes in its ranks, with a broad cross section of ages and ability.

The club meets twice a week at Thornbury Leisure Centre for training sessions and longer tempo runs, as well as organised social events and group excursions.

Many of the new recruits who joined in 2018 were making their first tentative steps towards taking part in a parkrun, while other long-time members were training for a longer event. Angela Bushell is a seasoned campaigner and lined up for her 7th marathon at the weekend in Chester, with her sights set on breaking the elusive 4-hour barrier for the first time. At the half way mark Angela was in a good position and on target, but a combination of niggling injuries slowed her progress in the final 10k. Angela finished in 1919th place and 411th female in a still very respectable time of 4 hours 20:51 mins.

Paul Clark finished Ironman Wales last month and was running in his first race on Sunday since his Tenby adventure. Paul finished 27th overall at Keynsham 10k and was 7th in the MV40 age category in 41:52 mins.

The parkrun movement celebrated its 14th birthday last week and its five millionth person to register. Thornbury running club has several evangelical parkrunners and a recent convert is Nick Langridge, who was running at his hometown of Hyde in North West. Nick was the 9th finisher in a time of 22:15 mins. Jim Godden had a good run at Chipping Sodbury parkrun with a time of 20:03 mins.

Ian Shepherd has finished over 200 parkruns and ran 23:37 mins at Thornbury parkrun, followed by Michael Stirrup in 29:45 mins.