THE second round of Thornbury Running Club’s 2019 Road Race Championships saw the club compete at the Berkeley 10k.

Aside from a few minor undulations, it’s a good course for a quick time and early series leaders Nick Williams and Hannah Kinloch Haken cemented their positions at the head of the men’s and women’s standings by finishing top Thornbury runners again.

Nick finished in 11th place overall and smashed his personal best by a minute with a superb time of 36:13 mins, while Hannah finished amongst the top 10 women in 9th place and 89th overall with a time of 42:56 mins, also a new personal best.

Nick Langridge produced another stellar performance to win the V65 age category and finish in 93rd place overall in 43:12 mins. Ian Evans ran his way through the field in the second half of the race to finish in 97th place in 43:23 mins. Paul Thomas was one place behind Ian in 43:30 mins, followed by Richard Jackson in 112th in 44:22 mins.

Clare Watt had another good race to finish in 2nd place in the V55 age category and 150th overall in 46:46 mins. Martin Coyle finished one place behind Clare in 151st place. The next runners were Mike Bennewitz in 189th in 49:38 mins, Sean Underwood 205th in 50:32 mins, Sarah Newnes 206th 50:41 mins, Hugh McPherson 214th 51:11 mins, Jon Welsh 216th 51:22 mins, David Flemington 290th 57:16 mins, Paul Newnes 298th 57:42 mins, Suzy Cundy 322nd 1:00:27 mins, John Watt 339th 1:02:43, Simon Groves 309th 1:09:42 mins and Carol Mosses 1:19:33 mins.

After braving the 117-mile Devon Coast to Coast off-road ultramarathon by himself last year, Rob Hopkins convinced Joanne Plumbley to join him for this year’s race. Starting in Wembury on the South Coast the race crossed inland through Dartmoor and finished on the North Coast in Lynmouth. Joanne and Rob reached the finish line together after 35 hours 01:40 mins of continuous effort, which was almost 9 hours quicker than Rob managed last year. It was another amazing achievement on a long list of endurance milestones for them both.

On Sunday, the #51fiver Standard Distance Triathlon in Cotswold Water Park was one of the first opportunities of the season for TRC’s triathletes to unpack their wetsuits for a race. It was contested over the Olympic distance of 1500m open water swim, a 40k bike ride, followed by a 10k run. Ian Evans was the first TRC finisher in 243rd with an overall time of 2 hours 47:46 mins (36:36 swim, 1:13:11 bike and 52:45 run). Kevin Cundy took part in his first triathlon and showed great promise to finish in 328th in 2:59:29 ( 31:59 swim, 1:23:24 bike and 53:38 run). Sarah Newnes was next in 344th overall and 66th woman in 3:01:11 mins (33:49 swim, 1:23:33 bike and 56:07 run).

On Sunday, 4 Thornbury runners travelled south to Plymouth for the hilly and hot Plymouth Half Marathon. Jon Welsh returned to his roots for his first effort over the half marathon distance, he finished in 1651st place in 2 hours 09:23 mins. Ellyn Pyne was the next Thornbury runner to finish in 2276th place in 2:23:53 mins, followed by Rachel Murphy 2570th 2:31:02 mins and Magda Johnson 2:39:58 mins.

Paul Thomas was the first to finish Thornbury parkrun in 20:56 mins, followed by Martin Abrahams in a new personal best of 23:20 mins, Mike Bennewitz 25:15 mins and Rebecca Twyman 23:33 mins.

Other TRC parkrun results included a 20:07 min run from Tom Usherwood in Stonehouse, Garry Slater ran 20:24 mins in Wotton, Ian Shepherd ran 25:05 mins in Pomphrey Hill, Moray Sloan ran 22:21 mins in Burnham and Highbridge and Matt Johnstone ran 19:29 mins at Somerdale Pavilion. At Chipping Sodbury, Henry Orna ran a new PB of 19:04 mins, followed by Jay Bartley 25:14 mins, Chris Lee new PB of 25:56 mins and Pamela MacLeod 34:20 mins.

On Severn Bridge, Paul Harrod broke the 19 minute barrier for the first time with a fine 18:52 min effort, followed by Kevin Wood in 21:53 mins and Clare Evans in 28:33 mins.