Yes, this is the second report for this weekend as promised.
There’s exciting news on 3 levels from Sunday’s 5-mile road race
1. Team results for the Gloucestershire County Road Race Series 2024
2. Race results for the day
3. Individual results for the 2024 Series (pending Glos AAA confirmation)
1. TEAM RESULTS 2024
After the 12th and last race in Tewkesbury, Cirencester AC Ladies Team emerged as double Champions – winning not only the Veteran but also the prestigious Open Team Competition, seeing off all other affiliated clubs in the county, especially the much larger Stroud AC who came 2nd. Cirencester’s other club, Running Somewhere Else, placed 3rd in both competitions, marking a great weekend for the town’s runners
Based on the records available to us, this is the first time in the >30-year history of the series that our Club has won the team competition. Thus justifying the nowadays over-used word "historic".
{Ed. - to adapt a Strava phrase, if it’s not in “Roman Steps” it didn’t happen ;-) }
Huge congratulations to Captain Kate Jacobs and the rest of her team who contributed to this brilliant result. They included, in order of number of races run,
Charlotte Wilton,
Rachel Ranger,
Kate Kilby,
Ruth Fulford,
Corinne Clark,
Jo Musk,
Wendy Jones,
Harrie Siebenaller-Weir and
Joyce Matthews.
2. INDIVIDUAL SERIES RESULTS 2024
As if winning the Ladies Team competitions wasn’t enough, Kate Jacobs and Charlotte Wilton finished 2nd and 5th respectively in the Ladies Open competition, despite giving away (as LV45’s) over 20 years to the younger runners!!
Pending official ratification, members are believed to have won the following individual medals
LV35 Corinne Clark 2nd - she only participated in the latter part of the season, but catapulted herself from nowhere to notch up 10 county points in the last race, notwithstanding the previous day’s XC run, thereby just achieving the minimum necessary 5 runs.
LV45 Kate Jacobs 1st, literally leading the team from the front, kicked off the series with a blistering time in the Linda Franks 5m in January to take the longstanding club age record from one Wendy Jones.
LV45 Charlotte Wilton 2nd, was unlucky to be in the same age group as Kate. She was our only lady to compete in all 12 races. The Cranham boundary run with its vicious hill at the end epitomised her commitment as she turned out to run for the team when barely recovered from Covid.
LV50 Rachel Ranger 2nd, after a really gutsy run in the Bourton HM had put her into medal contention, once again beat her key competitor from Stroud to move up from 3rd going into the last race. Rachel also earned a county HM medal at Bourton but nearly missed picking it up because “medals are for other people” – not true Rachel ! Her no. 1 Strava fan, Mr Dalby, is going to be an even prouder Dad.
MV50 James Widdowson 2nd – unfortunately James was injured and couldn’t defend his 2nd position after 11 races, but the editor saw him after Stroud HM and he would still be well pleased with his first county medal of any colour. {Ed - first draft of official results shows James held onto 2nd}.
LV60 Kate Kilby secured 3rd place despite injury shortening her season considerably - {Apologies from the Editor for omitting this in first posting}
MV60 Brian Harris 2nd – making his 3rd consecutive medal, inspired by, but hugely over-shadowed by.....
LV75 Ruth Fulford, retaining her title from last year, and extending her amazingly consistent record of winning an age group medal in EVERY road series held since at least 2013 (Ed. - I couldn’t find earlier data without embarrassing Ruth and asking her as Secretary and guardian of the old stuff)
3. Race results on the day
Recent mild weather resulted in a thankfully dry and familiar mostly flat course, after last year’s flooding and emergency use of an out-and-back plan B course.
It was great to see more than just “the usual suspects” turn out for the club, including :-
· husband and wife racing pair, Rachel and Gordon Jones
· Alex Banks, “fresh” from yesterday’s XC , just to see how a road 5mi would go (Ed. pretty well, I reckon Alex)
· Tash Pauck – just seconds behind Corinne, perhaps still suffering a little from Tuesday’s TT effort (see below)
· Jo Musk – back after several months away from racing, and with less training in the bank than usual, surprised herself as 2nd lady home, comfortably moving past her elderly chauffeur Brian Harris at mile 4.
· Karen Higuera – racing on the road for the first time in quite a while having prioritised (and completed) the Cotswold Century ultra a few months back. Karen was pleased with her (new) age category win (see below) but looking to improve her speed going forwards.
Most of the runners are pictured here
There were multiple individual age group prizes (sports shop vouchers) on the day for the race itself - Kate Jacobs LV45, Karen Higuera LV60, Brian Harris MV60, Ruth Fulford LV75+, and Gordon Jones MV75+. Photos were posted on the Whatsapp group (as Tash said "club cleaning up"). Finish times were as follows :-
35 Kate Jacobs 30.26 – 7th lady / 1st FV45
45 Alex Banks 31.12
69 Jo Musk 33.09
72 Brian Harris 33.27 – 1st V60
76 Charlotte Wilton 33.37 - new PB by 1sec
87 Corinne Clark 34.37
90 Natasha Pauck 34.40
143 Karen Higuera 37.59 – 1st FV60
161 Rachel Ranger 39.00
214 Gordon Jones 42.04 – 1st V75
353 Rachel Jones 51.19
375 Ruth Fulford 53.09 – 1st FV75
Club 1st Time Trial
Thanks to Luke Campbell and helpers for arranging the TT on Tuesday (and drinks in the Marlborough afterwards). As promised by Luke, here are the times that the handicap start will be based off when the next TT happens.
Position Time Name
1 15:50 Oliver Campbell
2 16:07 Rich Allen
3 16:44 Kate Jacobs
4 18:14 Andy Duff
5 19:12 Brian Harris
6 19:18 Tash Pauck
7 19:22 Annie Campbell
8 20:43 Casey Vatcher
9 21:27 Rob Tuttle
10 21:33 Charlie Clarke
11 21:34 Neil Broadley
12 21:49 Rachel Ranger
13 22:20 Jill Hadland
14 22:23 Phil Davey
15 22:29 Alan Mcadam
16 26:00 Jos Randall
17 29:45 Helen Manners
18 30:10 Liza Darroch
19 31:10 Ruth Fulford
20 32:35 Carol Clarke
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