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DRC Juniors Weekly Round Up

The Wednesday session included 200m and high jump practice with speed being the key theme. Thursday included some hurdle practice, speed bounce and discus throwing.
 
Saturday at Yate included long jump focussing on height during flight and javelin throwing. Congratulations to Annabel who was awarded with the DRC Junior Champion award for listening to instruction and showing great improvement during the session.
 
We are pleased to announce that we will be running the first ever ‘Mini Athletics’ programme, for 4-7 year olds (form for registration). Starting on 28th July at the Rugby Club.
Planning is also underway for the first ever DRC ‘Try Out Tri’ event. Organised by DRC Juniors, DRC TRI and The Pulse. Date for the diaries; 8th September.
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DRC Juniors Weekly Round Up

Wednesday Yr7+ athletics went ahead, as did Thursday athletics. Continued good training developing those core skills. Check out the photos.

Saturday was our break from the Yate sessions but Sunday was the Cheltenham U14 Championships and the Slimbridge Village Sports event. Bill Smith pulled off an amazing long jump gaining a 1st, well done. He also ran well in the 800m. Tom Smith also ran a good 100m; placing 3rd in his heat and showed great technique in the high jump.

If I’ve missed other please let me know – it’s great to celebrate the achievements of our athletes.

Looking forward; Wednesday athletics will hopefully include some high jump practice. Thursday will include a range of training to include; discus, long jump, hurdles and high jump.

Saturday will be back to Yate for Long Jump and Javelin.

The next competition event is the next U14 event at Cheltenham on 1st July. FYI I put all the links and details for each competition event on the google calendar entry (available on the Juniors page of the website) and Facebook event.

We will soon put out some more info about the ‘Mini Athletics’ sessions. These are for 4-7 year olds and will be on Saturdays at the Rugby Club from Sat 28th July. And also the ‘Try out Tri’ event in September. So keep watching this space.

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Dursley Peaks Race 2018 – Race Report and Results

A claggy late may evening greeted the 90 participants in the 2018 running of the Dursley Peaks Race, giving it that “fell race” feeling.

It was a great evening of racing for DRC. Dan Anderson led up the Peak and did not relinquish control of the race at any point. He finished in 44:31 a new course record, by just two seconds.

DRC’s Dan Anderson Starting the Uley Bury Climb on his way to a New Course Record

DRC’s Robyn Jackson was first woman home setting a course record for the women.

Paul Hocking and Jonny Marks were 3rd and 4th overall respectively. Jonny was a minute and half quicker than last year even though he had competed at the Gloucester Sprint Triathlon on Sunday!

DRC had winners in many age categories too, Margaret Johnson was third woman home and first F55, running over 2 minutes quicker than her previous outing and looking like she was enjoying herself all the way around. Tony Wooldridge first M65 and Alice Lewis first F60.

With so many strong finishes by DRC, local knowledge was clearly an advantage, with the visitors often quite leggy as they entered the final 50m. Conditions were not easy, wet and muddy after the torrential rain and quite humid, great efforts all round, and super, as ever, to see all the competitors enjoying the event.

Despite the mist the race was well supported with a large contingent on Cam Peak cheering the runners out and back.

Full race results can be found here >>>

 

 

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DRC Juniors Weekly Round Up

A few guest appearances this week for the DRC Juniors. Wednesday saw Tim Britton join the yr7+ juniors with some speedy track work. Thursday evening included Dave Wood coaching athletics and Saturday included a high jump session provided by High Jump specialist Jeremy Dale at the Yate Outdoor Sports Centre (including some coaching for us coaches).

Looking ahead – No training on Wednesday, Thursday athletics on the track and field as normal and Saturday at Yate again for Sprints and Shot Put session.

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DRC Juniors Weekly Round Up

Wednesday evening included the DRC versus BOK orienteering event. A few DRC Juniors joined in, including Olive who put her training from the Saturday session into practice and was first DRC Junior on the Orange route.

Thursday Summer Athletics was another lovely sunny evening (with fresh white lines – thanks to Carly and Andrew), and some more great training on display from hurdles to shot put.

The first of our Yate Athletics sessions kicked off on Saturday with some great long jump and pull through (javelin) training. It was a hot day, but the there was a good turn out and some great technique development.

Sunday included the U14 Track and Field League event at the Prince of Wales stadium, and the DRC Juniors brought a sizeable collection of medals; well done Tom, Harry, Jack, Freddie and Harry.

Dylan represented DRC Juniors in Essex on Sunday by completing his first junior park run; he completed the course in 9:39, 8th overall and 3rd in his category, great run.

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Berkeley 10k 2018 – Race Report and Results

A warm May evening greeted the runners at a sold out Berkeley 10k 2018. 50 of the 422 starters were Dursley Running Club athletes. Despite the hot weather, after a rousing send off from Dave Wood the front runners started briskly.

Steve Millward of Gloucester AC led the race around the first circuit, completing the 5k loop in 16:31 as he piloted Lee Stopford of Stroud AC into Hamfield Lane for the second time. They had an ample lead on the following runners and it seemed that it would all be down to who of the two had the legs. Steve later admitted that he probably adopted the wrong tactic of front running as he was unable to break Stopford who eased past him with 600m to go and extended his lead to about 15 metres in the run in, enough to secure him the victory.

Behind this tussle Eilidh Bell representing Team Bath AC had a more comfortable race to be first woman finishing in 37:22 and looking controlled, with Dursley’s own Robin Jackson second woman in 39:05, a  new personal best.

Jonny Marks was first home for Dursley in 38:12, with Nigel Sankey second in and very pleased with his personal best of 38:54 off the back of some great training runs. Margaret Johnson was second DRC woman home with a PB of 44:25 with Fran Amigoni in 3rd to complete the women’s team. Fran was picked off by Graeme Tudor who paced his finish extremely well pulling past Fran with about 25 meters to go. The club had a host of top ten age category finishers; Veronica Higgins, Audrey Harris, Claire Searle, Jim Moss, Fran Amigoni Graeme Tudor, Nigel Sankey and Jonny Marks. On the Podium along with Robyn Jackson were Kevin Jackson second in his category, Alice Lewis first F60 and Margaret Johnson first F50. The strong women’s performance saw DRC third in the women’s team race behind Almost Athletes and CLC Striders.

Ronnie Williams completed her first 10k a year after her first attempt was curtailed by the need to have her appendix removed, Kris Rymer achieved another PB, his first in the space of a month whilst Ellen Efford and Graham Wilkes , both Walk to Run Graduates also completed the race.

Full race results can be found here >>>

Special thanks go to Race Director  John Rogers and all his helpers, in particular Dave Saunders and Alice Lewis, but so many other people out there making the event run smoothly. Big thanks to Matt Sherrington and Jo Turner and crew who did massages and physio after the race raising over £70 for the clubs charity! Thanks to DB max for their excellent timing service, SGS College and Hamfield for use of facilities and Skills4Life for their medical support.

 

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DRC Grand Prix 2018 Update – Frenchay 10k & Stroud Trails Half

The latest DRC Grand Prix series includes results from the Frenchay 10k in April and last weekends Stroud Trail Half Marathon. Also included are a couple of corrections (thanks to those who pointed them out!) and some more marathon results which shuffles the points in this category around a little.

Click here for the latest league tables >>

As a reminder, marathon results must be submitted using this form for this years series. This includes the Stroud Trail Marathon. There’s been so many marathons over the past month that I’m sure there are lots of points waiting to be claimed so please don’t forget!

The Frenchay 10k and Stroud Trail Half Marathon both saw a good turn out from DRC runners in search of Grand Prix points. For those who ran but haven’t entered the series, there’s still time to do this by filling out this short form.

Pete Chaffer still hangs onto 1st place in the men’s league but now has the ominous form of Tony Wooldridge breathing down his neck. Andrew Probert has jumped into 3rd place courtesy of a good performance at Frenchay and entering his Prague Marathon result.

In the women’s league Alice Lewis continues her fantastic age grade performances and maintains a perfect record to remain on top. With only 2 more races needed to qualify for the prizes, and quite a gap already to 2nd place, Alice looks a good bet to defend her title from 2017.  Annette Heylings remains in 2nd place but good runs at Frenchay and Stroud mean Julie Froggatt has now taken the 3rd spot ahead of Eileen Hieron and Caroline Jones.

No one was brave enough to take on the only ultra race in this years series, the Marlborough Downs Challenge, so some potentially easy points have been missed there. Something for runners to consider for next years series maybe…

Next up is Wotton parkrun throughout the month of June, followed by the Thornbury 10k which is full. Entries are however still open for the Westonbirt House Summer 10km in August, though I expect it will sell out before the day so don’t hang about if you need more races to qualify for the prizes!

Finally don’t forget that this years series has been extended to include the Forest of Dean Autumn Trail race due to the cancellation of the original spring race.

As always, please feel free to get in touch with Mike Crompton or Tony Freer if you have any questions on the Grand Prix, either individually or using the email address grandprix@durslingrunningclub.org.uk

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DRC Juniors Weekly Round Up

The DRC Juniors were busy this week!

Wednesday evening included a high jump session, with even the coaches having a sneaky go. Thursday evening was another great session with some endurance running, shot put, javelin and long jump training keeping everyone participating on track and field.

Saturday saw a great turn out of both club members and non-club members ready to try out orienteering. A massive thank you to the knowledgeable coaches and organisers from the Bristol Orienteering Klub (BOK). Participants had a brief warm up, followed by some instruction in how to read the maps and how to plan a route and then they were off! Our budding orienteers enjoyed the ‘dibbers’ and the challenge of finding the flags, and then to finish off some delicious cake (thank you to the cake makers too). If you are interested in getting involved in more Orienteering events, then either join us on Wednesday evening this week for another adult and junior appropriate orienteering event and/or please visit the BOK website here >>.

Back on the tracks, Freddie represented the DRC Juniors at the Gloucestershire AAA Track and Field Championship, silver in the 200m, fantastic!

Looking forward; continuing Wednesday and Thursday evening athletics sessions and on the horizon is our Yate athletics sessions. Just five weeks of athletics training, these sessions start at 2.30pm on Saturdays (19/05, 26/05, 02/06, 16/06 and 23/06) and will include some coaching from Jeremy, a high jump specialist coach. We are not asking for a registration form for these events so please do join us if you can, sessions will be suitable for any of our DRC Juniors, this is a great opportunity to train using some great facilities.

Have a great week.

Caroline