***QUEEN OF THE ROAD****Cirencester gets a Half **** XC season starts *** NY Marathon
- brian17harris
- 21 hours ago
- 7 min read
Sunday 2nd November - Guy Fawkes 5 miles
As usual, this event was the last of the 10 races in the Glos AAA road series, and several medal positions were decided on the day. There was a strong turnout, with 10 members running.
Biggest congratulations go to club captain Kate Jacobs, who upgraded last year’s silver to win outright the OPEN ladies category for 2025, as well as her V45 age group.
To be outright county champion aged 48 is an outstanding achievement, and quite probably the first time a club member has ever been county champion (certainly since published records starting 2008).
Everything hinged on this last race. Kate had had to sit out the last couple of races on the sidelines with an injured Achilles, and hadn’t run for 2 weeks prior to this race, only able to train pain-free on an elliptical machine. She had a race in hand over her 10-year younger rival from Western Tempo, so could afford to finish a few places behind her.
In her warmup (not in race shoes) with the editor, the ankle was still sore, albeit at a low enough level to start the race. However, with race shoes now on, she set off intending to try and stay with the leading bunch of ladies for as long as she could without breaking anything. Fortunately the ankle behaved itself and she was able to finish 6th, in 31.53. Her rival had an off-day, so Kate’s margin at the top of the points table (although not yet published) should be quite comfortable.
Kate’s Open category wasn’t the only success to celebrate though. Whilst we are waiting for official ratification, we are pretty sure the following all finished in gold medal position for the 2025 season :
V40 Rich Allen
V45 Kate Jacobs
V60 Karen Higuera
V65 Kate Kilby
V75 Ruth Fulford
Quite a haul of golds for a relatively small club – congratulations to them all!!
Apart from Kate, Karen was the only other member to pick up a prize on the day – despite her shopping list of ailments on the day, she “jogged” round ahead of the other LV60’s well under the pace she’s capable of to clinch the top spot for her first proper road season for quite a few years. {This didn’t stop her trying to persuade the roadie editor to try another ultra!}.
Super-consistent Rich Allen averaging an impressive 5.42 mile pace looks to have nabbed another 10 points in his Glos age group to finish his first road season (and last as V40) as age group champion. Great job Rich.
With his A race marathon under his belt, Andy Duff got off to a self-confessed adrenaline-fuelled start which brought the pain later on, (“4 miles too many”) but he toughed it out, and is expected to have finished 4th in his age group for in his first road season.
Charlotte Wilton is one of many of us losing significant time to injury this season, so it was great to see her back racing, albeit as a sandwich run between two easy runs to total a marathon-training Sunday total. Without those extra miles she would have undoubtedly finished ahead of some-way-from-being-back-to-full-form-yet Brian Harris, who was spurred on to finish just inside his pre-race 35 minute goal by Charlotte almost overtaking him with a few hundred metres to go. He rather unsportingly dug a bit deeper to finish just 2 seconds ahead.
Gordon Jones had to settle for 2nd place in his age group this year, swapping places with the runner he beat last year.
1 Max Kelly (Western Tempo) 25.26
18 Rich Allen (Cirencester AC) 28.32
55 Kate Jacobs 31.53 – 6th lady / 1st FV45
89 Andy Duff 34.14
101 Brian Harris 34.51
102 Charlotte Wilton 34.53
187 Karen Higuera 40.06 – 1st FV60
271 Gordon Jones 46.26
285 Pam Wheeler 47.47
341 Rachel Jones 53.03
372 Ruth Fulford 55.46
Parkruns 1st November
Steve Hale celebrated his 100th Parkrun at the course he’s run most of them at – Tetbury, followed on by Paul Timms and Alan and Rachel McAdam. Steve notched up his first century commendably quickly, averaging 3 parkruns a month, notwithstanding his Antipodean break.
At Cirencester, two recently joined MV60 members were amongst the first home for the club.
Dave Wright, not to be confused with our results coordinator and lifetime member David Wright V65, was only doing his 3rdparkrun since returning to running after concentrating on cycling. Dave has run a few times with Thursday runners and his 74% age-graded time of 22.00 augurs well if he ever wants to run any races going forwards, without detracting from his cycling.
A belated welcome too to Richard Read, who has been parkrunning for a few years before joining the club. He has also run a 74% time earlier this year, so when the editor is properly fit again it looks like the club could field a pretty decent V60 team, if only there were such a niche event ;-)
Helen Manners was once again volunteering, her sister Pam Wheeler ahead of racing on Sunday, and Jon Young.
Cirencester: 8 Dave Wright (new member) 22.00, 9 Luke Campbell 22.02,13 Richard Read 22.34, 76 Susanna Austin 26.55, 152 Richard Edwards 31.20, 185 Jonathan Higgs 33.11, 191 Amanda Naylor 33.29, 258 finished.
Tetbury: 27 Stephen Hale 24.16, 31 Paul Timms 24.57, 50 Alan McAdam 27.17, 66 Rachel McAdam 28.51, 156 finished.
Swindon, Seven Fields: 41 David Moss 24.33, 202 finished.
Carterton, Kilkenny Lane: 230 Colin Tapley 39.23, 266 finished.
Woolacombe Dunes: 103 Tom Morgan 33.01, 184 finished.
Harrogate: 64 Rachel Ranger 24.30, 334 finished.
CIRENCESTER HALF MARATHON – Sunday 2nd November
There are lots of event photos available through the club whatsapp community, so just a selection are included in this newsletter.
Sunday morning saw the roads around Cirencester closed off and some residents temporarily trapped as the inaugural running of the Cirencester HM took place, starting and finishing in the Market Square. Early rain out the way, the weather was pretty good for racing.
The club colours were well represented by 16 runners and plenty of supporters, and the ladies in particular performed well with 5 finishing in the top 11.
At least 6 runners clocked all-time PB’s, and 3 won their age groups.
In-form Joyce Matthews improved her club FV50 own record and PB set at Worcester earlier this year by almost 3 minutes – particularly impressive on a course with 3 x 180 degree turns and that hill (see below).
Susanna Austin kindly sent in this account
“A great inaugural Cirencester Half. My first run with full Cirencester AC support - it may have made all the difference! Also good to see the great and good of Cirencester Parkrun out marshalling. The traffic may have been a bit disorganised, but the run went smoothly. Even the odd out-and-backs at the start didn't cause bottle necks and gave us a warm-up before Stratton Hill, the first of several daunting hills.
Seeing Cirencester runners and supporters livened up the apparently endless slog to the Sapperton turn around at 8 miles. Things got quicker, if not easier, after that, down through the park to my first sub 2-hour finish in 30 years. 01:59:19 gun time (01:57:56 chip)
Very grateful to physio George who kept me running through three weeks of sciatic nerve pain since Cirencester Slog. Will find out if I got away with it tomorrow, I guess.”
Yay. Best HM in 30 years – congratulations Susanna!
With so many runners participating, we’ve included short snippets below
2 October 2025, Cirencester Half Marathon – with abridged Strava feedback
1 Thomas Dunford (Bristol & West AC) 1.11.47 (chip 1.11.46)
5 Jake Miles (Cirencester AC) 1.19.10 (1.19.08) 1st V35
39 Andy Fellows 1.27.54 (1.27.35) “cheeky PB after a freezing fireworks night”
53 Storm Trow 1.28.56 (1.28.51) – 3rd lady “PB despite being ill all week” {Ed – amazing !)
71 Casey Vatcher 1.30.27 (1.30.03) – “very pleased went to plan – PB”
91 Leo Crawford 1.33.08 (1.32.58)
104 Joyce Matthews 1.34.24 (1.33.56) – 5th lady / 1st FV50, club FV50 record, new PB
114 Elysia Harrison 1.35.15 (1.34.54) – 7th lady / 1st FV35
118 Tommy Payne 1.35.25 (1.35.05) “chuffed with a PB”
125 Annie Campbell 1.35.45 (1.35.21) – 9th lady
135 Jo Musk 1.36.21 (1.36.00) – 2nd V40 great event, amazing support (shocking pacing)
139 Clare Stickney 1.36.45 (1.36.20) 2nd V45
tbc Gareth James c. 1hr47 (not yet on website results) – “PB after only 3 hours sleep”
595 Susanna Austin 1.59.19 (1.57.56)
650 Gary Wood 2.01.51 (2.01.51)
656 Scott Mould
657 Claire Mould
801 Jocelyn Randall 2.09.38 (2.08.17)
1164 finished www.runcirencester.co.uk
Cross country racing
Unfortunately clashing with other forms of racing again, both the Glos and Oxford leagues held their first fixtures on Saturday/Sunday respectively.
Stewarded by RSE in Cirencester Park, the Glos races saw a good turnout of younger runners from the club, but as far as the editor is aware (in the absence of official results, which are manual and therefore take some time to be published) the only senior runners were Aaron Willis and James/Liz Thomas.
Dorian Matts will kindly publish a report on the junior/teen XC results next week.
NEW YORK MARATHON
And lastly in a packed weekend but certainly not least, results are just in this evening from the New York marathon, one of the Abbott Majors series. Further details next week hopefully,
but Kate Kilby has got round in 4.17.11, no news yet on 2nd claim member Andy Kilby. Well done Kate - hope the foot isnt too bad afterwards..
Whilst it won't appear in the club's results page, members should knwo that Overseas member Sophie Chudley (LV45), running for her Australian club turned in another literally world class performance of 2.45.06 - this placed her 2nd in the Abbott World Masters Age group championships - see below. Huge congratulations Sophie.
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