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