Biscuits, X-Country and extra long 10 miler!

Glos AAA Cross Country Championships 2019

A small but determined band of DRC runners a made it to the rather delightful environs of Rendcombe School to take part in the County Championships. It was a bitterly cold day and the cold was increased for the U17s and over with two thigh deep river crossings on each lap. Even the U13s had smaller water courses to run though as well as the challenges of sustained adverse camber along narrow sheep tracks and a steep if short hill climb. DRC had just the two runners in the Senior Woman’s race with Alice Lewis leading the F60s home and first home for the club, with W2R graduate Jo Fearns putting in a great effort to place 10th F40! Just the solitary senior male Dave Durden, ran three large laps, 6 significant water crossings to stop him getting two hot. Coming back from illness he ran a steady race placing 5th in his category., pleased with his pacing and a strong finish. There was some very strong running from the Juniors with Charlie Wosfield placing 3rd un the U13 boys with his brother Joel 7th in the U17s, always a difficult age group. Lucy Holdsworth continued her fine season with a 5th in the girls U13s.

Results: MU13, Charlie Wosfield 3rd 13:42; MU17 Joel Worsfield 7th 19:10; LU13 Lucy Holdsworth 5th

16:22; Senior Women: Alice Lewis 37th (1st F60) 34:17; Jo Fearns 76th(10th F40) 49:03; Senior Men:

Dave Durden 62nd (5th M50) 44:22

Gloucester 10 Miler, or  more…..!

Fourteen DRC athletes were at the Gloucester 10 mile event on the 30th of December to finish off their competitive year and for a few, start laying bases for their marathon training for London 2019
Unfortunately, a marshal misdirected some of the earlier runners leading to Matt Hazel Livall and Kevin Jackson having to run an extra 6th of a mile. This didn’t stop them coming home respectively first and second for DRC. The Beyond Limitation organisation failing to pick up Kevin’s finish and also Jackie Pennington who came in as a late entry! Sadly a week later no amendments posted. As ever great running from DRC in the age categories headed by Eileen Hieron 1st F70 #BOOM! Annette Heylings 4th F60, Di Gore 5th F60. Annette was super pleased with her run three and a half minutes quicker
than last year! Matt-Livall managed a top 20 finish despite the misdirection. Steve Barnes placed 11th M60, and received a special thank you on our FB page for keeping another runner company over the ten miles, helping them keep going, and according to Steve “putting the world to rights!” Well done Steve! Not sure 10 miles is long enough though given the state of the world!

Results
(provisional):

Matt Livall, 40th, 1:10:56, (20th M30-39); Francesca Amigoni, 85th , 1:16:51,(10th F30-30); Paul Breen , 86th , 01:17:06, (31st 30-39); Nick Fennell, 286th, 01:36:34, (58th 30-39); Jackie Pennington, (Pos. tbc) 01:40, tbc; Annette Heylings, 322nd , 1:42:19, (4th F60-69); Steve Barnes, 325th , 1:43:20, (11th M60-69; Emma Keating, 330th , 1:44:28, (57th F40-49); Dominique. Pemberton, 331st 1:44:28, (41st F30-39); Diana Gore, 341st , 1:45:03, (5th F60-69);Sarah Newall, 361st , 1:49:12, (67th F40-49); Suzanne Moss, 363rd , 1:49:13, (69th F40-49); Karen Eadon, 367th , 1:49:27, (33rd F50-59); Terry Cother, 370th 01:49:28, (34th M50-59); Eileen Hieron, 374th, 01:50:07, (1st F70

New Years Day 5

Nigel Sankey reports “Nine Dursley runners lined up for the New Year’s Day Pilot Inn 5 miler organised by Severn AC. A simple out and back, the course would best be described as undulating. Well done to Alice Lewis for coming 1st lady and Alice, Mel Williams and Janet Matthews for picking up first ladies team. Also congratulations to all the other Dursley runners, Mouse Clutterbuck, Ray Williams, Deb Peake, Richard Hensman and Cara Zoglowek”. Great to see Deb Peake competing in DRC vest and Ray escorting his better half over the finish line or was it vice versa?

For those unaware of Severn AC Race Director Terry Haines history of putting on small, well run and competitive races will also be unaware that Terry was famous for his is “Fair Trade Biscuit” prizes. DRC runners dominated the small field this year with 6 first places in category two seconds and one fourth, so DRC definitely took the biscuit(s)!

Results: Nigel Sankey , 7th , SenM, 2nd, 32:28; Alice Lewis, 15th, F60 , 1st , 37:04; Mouse Clutterbuck, 16th, M55, 1st , 38:45; Richard Hensman, 20th, M40, 4th , 40:39; Ray Williams, 22nd, M69, 2nd ,42:05; Mel Williams, 23rd, F55, 1st , 42:05; Janet Matthews, 26th, F40, 1st , 44:03; Deb Peake, 27th, F35, 1st , 45:15; Cara Zoglowek, 30th, F45 , 1st , 58:55

Greed – Severn Sins

Caroline Jones reports that “There were good conditions for the 7 Sins race held on Friday 28th in the Forest of Dean. Soft ground but not too boggy. The route includes seven hills (and some slopes that aren’t steep enough to officially count as hills) and two tunnels of icy cold water to wade through. It’s a tough course designed to ensure all competitors burn off a good number of festive calories. First in for Dursley was Chris Sweet who made a great time of 1:06 despite having forgotten his trail shoes. He lost a trainer more than once in the muddy stretches and lost time having to retrieve it and was overtaken on some of the slippery downhills. Next year with the right shoes he’ll be a definite contender for the coveted ‘Sub 1 hour’ T-Shirt. Mouse Clutterbuck paced his better half Den around the course coming in with a time of 01:15 Den came in 9th female running for Gloucester AC. Caroline Jones was 12th female overall with a time of 01:19. Rich Prior, (feeing conflicted? Ed.), came in with another strong time of 01:23 running for the Berkeley Harriers (but wearing the DRC vest). The ‘sin’ this year was ‘Greed’ represented by the traditional gruesome medal for all finishers.

Bowstones NYE Fell Race

Paul Gebbett was the sole representative at Bowstones Fell race in Lyme Park (oop North) finishing in a time of 56:31, 103rd place, running as a M40, he was in a veritable host of older runners! Recovering after a cough and cold as most of us are, Paul said “was taking it easy good fun though!”.

DRC Juniors Weekly Round Up

2019 has started with energy and enthusiasm! Hills training on Wednesday, U21 tempo session on Thursday, Bleep Test session on Friday and Cross Country training on Saturday. It has been great to see so many of our younger club members take part in our programmes. And a huge thank you to all those people who help to make these sessions work.

Looking for new sports kit? Just a reminder Dursley Running Club members, that includes our Juniors, get a 10% discount at Gloucester Sports.

The DRC Juniors section development plan was created last year so that we can plan our section improvements over the coming months and years. The first spend against this plan was the purchase of new indoor athletics equipment that we are hoping will arrive in time for this year’s programme. I am always open to discussion and further ideas for our development plan; please let me know if you’d like to contribute.

Current programmes:
-Yr7+ Running Skills Development, for 11-18yr olds, Wednesdays 6.15pm from Rugby Club
-U21 Winter Running, for 14-20yr olds, Thursdays 6.30pm from Rugby Club
-Indoor Athletics, for 7-18yr olds, Fridays 5pm at Rednock Sports Hall
-Muddy Running (currently cross country training), for 7-18yr olds, Saturdays 9.30am at Rugby Club

DRC Juniors – Welcome Back!

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a fabulous Christmas, perhaps a few new pairs of running shoes were unwrapped, or some sporty shorts and maybe someone was lucky enough to receive a smart watch. Well the new sports season is about to begin, so just a few reminders of the current DRC Juniors offerings:

  • Wednesday evenings 6.15-7.15pm Yr7+ Run Based Training from the Rugby Club.
  • Thursday evenings 6.30-7.30pm U21 Winter Running Programme from the Rugby Club.
  • Friday evenings 5.00-6.00pm Indoor Athletics at Rednock Sportshall – please register here as numbers are limited.
  • Saturday mornings 9.30-10.30am Muddy Running from the Rugby Club at present – still a little more cross country training to go, but we will aim to organise some trail running and orienteering events before Easter.

All sessions commence from 9th Jan onwards. Please remember to dress for the weather, hats and gloves recommended for those colder sessions. Please check out our website for more information: www.dursleyrunningclub.org.uk/drc-juniors/

Kind Regards,

Caroline

DRC Juniors Weekly Round Up

Another great sporting week despite the cold, wet windy weather. Running on Wednesday and Thursday with some new faces giving running a go. Saturday saw some really nasty weather, but that didn’t put off our cross country runners who showed us some great determination when running over obstacles.

Sunday was the Indoor Athletics Sportshall League, hosted by us at Rednock. Just four athletes took part from Dursley, but they did great; bringing the DRC Juniors into the competition for the first year ever. Well done to Bill Smith, George Pitts, Olive Jones and Charlie Jones. Our cake and coffee sale made £40 too which we can add to our development funds.

On the topic of development funds, we have a committee meeting on Monday where amongst other things we will be reviewing our development plan. If anyone is interested in joining us, or would like to input then you are welcome to. Contact me for details.

We finish for the Christmas break after the Thursday 20th session, back on the 9th January. But if you want to join the Boxing Day DRC family friendly run please do, everyone welcome. Whatever your plans for the Christmas break I wish you a fabulous time, and look forward to training again in the New Year.

DRC Juniors Weekly Round Up

Ever decreasing circles on Wednesday made for some great pacing control training, some tough 400m loops. On Saturday cross country training included some more progressive Kenyan Hill with Obstacles training. Great stuff.

Olive Jones represented DRC at the Sportshall League. One more Sportshall League event to go this year (date to be confirmed either 9th/16th Dec, to be at Cheltenham Sports Centre).

A good number already signed up for the Indoor Athletics due to start in January, link here >> to register if interested in this.

The U21 Winter Running Programme starts next week too, aimed at developing young adult endurance running ability. Follow this RunTogether link to find out more and register for this programme: link >>

Next Saturday is the KLB School Cross Country racing, so no cross country training, but some warm up drills and haring for our older juniors from 9.30am.

Registration Opens for 2019 Berkeley 10k

We are pleased to announce that the Berkeley 10k will be held on the 13th May 2019. Start time 7.15pm.

Register here >>

Part of the Gloucestershire AAA, The Berkeley 10k is a fast flat 10k on a RunBritain license. Based on quiet roads with good facilities and chip timing. Every finisher gets a drink from the bar and there are prizes for first three men and first three women, as well as the usual five year veteran age categories. In addition there are team prizes for best four men’s and three women’s teams.

DRC Juniors Weekly Round Up

Wednesday was our indoor athletics Sportshall League special. Huge thanks to Elliot from the Cheltenham Harriers travelling down, bringing all the equipment and showing us some of the league events. We had 24 Juniors there and I think they had a great time.

Saturday was both the KLB Cross Country races and the 1st Sportshall League event.

We had 6 Juniors haring and they did a great job in encouraging those younger Juniors around the course. A couple of top performances to mention by name; Bill Smith 2nd place in the yr5/6 boys race and Holly Clarke 4th in the yr3/4 girls race. Well done to all Juniors who took part, from first to last a huge effort well deserving of applause.

In the Sportshall League Olive Jones and Sophie Keevil put in a great performance for the first ever DRC U11 girls team! And Charlie Jones represented the U13 boys for DRC, fabulous. Well done, I’m looking forward to the 24th Nov for our return visit, hopefully with a much bigger team!

Watch this space for our U21s running programme due to start soon (Tuesday evenings). Cross country training 9.30am at the rugby club next Saturday.

X-Country Season Starts

Gloucestershire AAA

Cross Country Series Race 1 Old Down

The first in the Gloucestershire AAA Cross Country Series saw 31 DRC athletes competing from first timers at junior (George Pitts) and senior level(Rachel Brown, Julie Gowing Jo Feans Martin Bragg & Mark Owen to veterans such as Kevin Jackson & Trevor Lewis who returned to the fray after a few years away. One of the essences of cross country is that each race is totally different, even on the same course, weather & ground conditions adding to the variables of the athletes’ fitness & preparation. Glos AAA had changed the course with a small loop added for some with a long steady climb through the woods for all, the changes made for an interesting & very runnable course. As Storm Callum headed towards the UK, the runners were greeted with very strong winds & a warm day, with car thermometers showing 22 degrees at the time of the Junior races. The wooded section was very humid. For the juniors who have not raced that often judging their effort over this tough course with the conditions was a big ask & they did fantastically well, most importantly they were smiling at the end.

U11 Girls were led in by Holly Clark, all ran controlled races, with Ruby Heath doing well to pick herself up & finish after a tumble in the woods the U11G being DRCs only full Junior team. George Pitts really enjoyed his fisrt XC outing and finished really strongly. In the U13 girls race Lucy Holdsworth was determined to run well, having felt disappointed with her run at Old Down last year. Another controlled run saw her in ninth place for most of the race, and she managed to hold off a strong s challenge in the last 30 metres. James Durden ran in the U17/U20 race, a challenging range of runners for a 16 year old. He found the woods very warm and increasingly tough but he stuck at his task and also managed a strong finish. The cross country will stand him and all the other juniors (hopefully some seniors) in good stead for next summers track events. After the Juniors racing finished the Senior woman, U20/U17L and male vets over 65 were next up. Robyn Jackson(Waite) led the DRC charge with Margaret Jackson returning to competitive running after a long lay with a stress fracture pushing hard on the first lap. A posse of DRC women followed the leading two with as the race started including Rachel Brown, Tara Truman, Rachel Brown, Shona Darley, Julie Gowing, Erica Fuller, with Eileen Hieron and Jo Fearns doing the sweeping. The thorn between these roses was Trevor Lewis, participatingin the M65 plus event. It was great to see Trevor one of the club stalwarts, Dozen Race Director, sub 3 hour marathoner competing again, after a seven year gap apparently! Robyn held on (see parkrun report) for an impressive 8th position, sharpening herself up for the SW Inter Counties 10K road relays where she is representing the County! Margaret also held on after her quick start to place and impressive 2nd in category, her layoff clearly not affecting her competitive spirit too much. Rachel Brown had a great debut, just 3 and half minutes behind Margaret, and I am confident That this gap is going to reduce over the course of the series, perhaps not at the next one as Rachel as has a marathon in between times! She posted ”I ran my first cross country race today. I’m not going to lie, I found it hard. I was quite nervous at the start, lots of fast looking runners. I’d done a warm up lap so knew what to expect of the course. I felt ok on the first lap; the second lap I started to feel it; and by the third lap I struggled up the climb but recovered enough to finish strong”. In fact, Rachel said afterwards that it was the hardest thing she had ever done, and that’s XC for you, constantly adjusting your effort over testing terrain in a competitive environment. Key points from her post are the necessity to walk/run the course and that the nature of courses will tire you out, more so than on a road run where it is much easier to measure effort. With the rest of the women’s team plugging away DRC Woman’s A team were 13th and the Women’s Masters team 9th , great efforts by all, and a salutary lesson about how every run counts at cross country. An email to Glos AAA re the need for F70 and F75 categories needed. The final race of the afternoon was the senior males. A gain a good turnout form DRC although a few senior men were missing, which was likely to impact on the team result. Paul Hockings, James Everett and Mike Brown led the way for DRC disappearing off in the distance with Andy Truswell leading Dave Durden astray with quick start, whilst Tony Freer just keeping a watching brief, another DRC quintet of Kevin Jackson, Dave Wood, Martin Bragg, Nigel Sankey and Jon Tudor. Paul Hockings showed his class, finishing 18th and 3rd in category about a minute and a quarter ahead of James Everett, who admitted that his current preparation of a Coastal Marathon meant he was not a sharp as he would have liked. Mike Brown was another 2 minutes back and disappointed with his run, typical runner! Although he was pleased to be ahead of James for a bit!

Glos AAA Cross Country Series Race 1 The clusters of DRC runners behinds stayed together although there was some shifting of positions and Kevin was able to move away from his chasers. After too quick a first lap Dave Durden decided to ease off for the next two laps to save himself for the fourth ascent, howver this strategy went out the window with Tony and Andy Truswell closing in on him, providing an incentive to work a bit harder, and he managed to hold them both off in the final. Making his debut for DRC at XC Martin Bragg was an excllent 4th in category just in front of Dave Wood who must still have his Cotswold Century in his legs! As the images above show some very strong finishes by DRC, Andy Kilby showing off his famous sprint and Nigel showing how sharp his elbows are. He did apologise afterwards. However a key point about cross country is not making it easy for the runners behnind you to get past! The images also show that the runners gave their all, nothing left after crossing the line. A great afternnoon’s competition for DRC and the numbers out from young to old reflect the values of our our club, inclusivity encouragment and friendliness and the efforts in particular of our junior coaching team. And the big plus, Kevin’s chocolate biscuits afterwards! Plenty still do do to encourage more participation but progress is being made and I am sure the chocolate biscuits will assist! We will need to ensure we have hand for DRC Juniors as well! Results Juniors U11G:Holly Clark,31st, 12:30; Jess Poskett,39th ,13:25; Lila Heath, 41st ,13:42; Ruby Heath,43rd ,14:08; Team Result: Dursley U11G, 9th (111). U13G: Lucy Holdsworth , 9th,14:23 Male U11: George , Pitts , 52nd , U11B, , 12:50 Male U20/U17: James , Durden , 21st , MU17, 16th, 00:36:11 Seniors Senior Woman; Robyn Jackson , 8th , SenW, 6th, 30:10; Margaret Johnson , 37th , F50, 2nd, 33:59; Rachel Brown , 79th , F45, 11th , 37:33; Tara Truman , 86th , F45, 12th, 38:50; Erica Fuller , 97th , F45, 15th, 39:41;Shona Darley , 113th , F40, 14th, 42:12; Julie Gowing , 114th , F35, 11th, 42:17; Jo Fearns , 131st , F40, 16th, 51:27; Elieen Hieron , 132nd , F65+, 4th, 51:33; Team Results: DRC SenW A, , 13th (124); DRC SenW B, , 27th (296) ; DRC SenW C, , 31st (377) , DRC FV A, , 9th , (202); DRC FV B, , 17th (324) Senior Men: Paul Hocking , 18th , M40, 3rd , 38:50; James Everett, 31st , SemM, 25th, 40:35 Mike Brown , 46th , SenM, 33rd, 42:40; David Durden , 92nd, M50, 11th, 45:11; Tony Freer, 93rd , M50, 12th, 45:16; Andrew Truswell , 98th , SenM, 52nd, 45:27; Kevin Jackson , 137th , M55, 8th, 47:52; Martin Bragg, 141st , M60 , 4th, 48:09; Dave Wood , 142nd, M50, 23rd, 48:13; Jon Tudor , 147th , SenM, 63rd, 48:35; Nigel Sankey , 152nd , SenM, 65th, 49:24; Mark Owen , 201st , SenM, 78th, 58:32; Paul Lewington, 204th, M60+ 8th, 01:02:13. Team Results DRC SenM A 9th (378 points); DRC SenM B, 20th (920); DRC MV 8th (340) Male Vet. 65+ : Trevor Lewis , 94th , M70, 1st, 39:25:00

Next fixture Race 2 Saturday November 3rd 2018 Charlton Park, Malmesbury

Leicester Marathon

As you can see Hannah Osbourne is one happy camper. Travelling North to complete the Leicester Marathon. Hannah has only been training for two years and completed he first marathon, London, in 05:13. Leicester was her fourth marathon. She posted “It was torrential rain and was soaking from the moment I started, a nice route but finished on a one mile hill!! I got a massive PB of 3h 59mins bang on!!”, congratulations Hannah!

Royal Parks Half

Garry Strickland ran the above Half raising money for the International Seafarers Welfare and Assistance Network His posted prior to the event “Anything you can do to help the Plight of Seafarers would be appreciated. Please bear in mind than the majority of all global trade moves by water, just have a look at your worldly possessions to see where they originate!” All in a good cause Garry ran it in a time of 01:38:18, 1241st position and 201st MV45, I am guessing wide age range in this category! He was then off to Ronnie Scotts for some Jazz, NICE! For more info; http://seafarerswelfare.org

Boward Duathlon

Nigel Burford completed his first Duathlon despite a quick parkrun the day before placed 11th and 1 st in category, so clearly his warm up worked, the results seem rather strange , very short transition and bike and very long run 2 so assuming they will be amended. Run T1 bike t2 Run2 Finsh Overall Cat Nigel Burford 10:22 11:03 43:44 01:28:16 11th 8th

 

Final DRC Grand Prix 2018 Results

Congratulations to Tony Woodridge and Alice Lewis who both successfully defended their DRC Grand Prix titles!

In the men’s league Andrew Probert secured 2nd place and was the only other man to complete all the qualifying criteria. This left us in the unexpected situation of not having 3 runners meeting the qualification criteria, however as the 3rd highest point scorer and having completed 7 of the 8 races required, more than any other competitor, Matt Read picks up a deserved 3rd place.

There was a similar situation in the women’s league. Annette Heylings picked up a comfortable 2nd place, almost matching Alice’s maximum points which would have left us in another interesting situation! More rule clarifications required for next year…!

So as in the men’s league, it has been decided as the 3rd highest point scorer (just) and having run an equal number of races to anyone else, Eileen Hieron matches last years result with another well earned 3rd place. Well done to Julie Froggatt who just misses out for the 2nd year running, this time injury getting in the way.

Well done and thank you to everyone who took part. Final tables can be found here >>>

Prize giving will be at the next Tuesday night social on Tuesday 20th November.

As for the 2019 series, we’ve made the decision to start the series from January 2019. This gives us more time to take on board feedback we’ve received on the series, and will also align with next years planned end of year awards evening. So the series will finish with the Stroud Half Marathon 2019 rather than starting with it. More info and race list to follow very soon.