We're Famous....Eggcellent!
- brian17harris
- 58 minutes ago
- 6 min read
What, the club? Well not quite.
Club member Susanna Austin is featured in the May edition of Runner's World which is the latest edition currently available in magazine racks, with Harry Styles on the cover, whoever he is ;-).
Susanna is "Member of the Month" and kindly ensured that her club membership was included, along with Tuesday training.
We can't reproduce the whole article here but here's an extract photo provided by Susanna - many congratulations to her, and thanks for the mention too.
{Technical plea - if anybody knows how to "tell" Wix which photo of several in a newsletter is chosen to be the single photo that a reader sees before diving in, please let Brian Harris know. If he can fix it, the photo each week will make more sense of the newsletter title}.
This week saw some welcome British sunshine featuring in many runner’s Strava posts (and some warmer sun we presume for Paul Timms between shifts in Rio de Janeiro).
The best photo I came across (very subjective I know) this week was from Clare Tapley, walking at Badbury Clump in the VWH
************Club champs and Glos AAA road series**********
Apologies for not getting to this earlier, but here's an update on two competitions that run throughout the season.
It’s still early days with only 3 of the 12 events completed in the county road race series, but some of our athletes are already doing well in their respective age groups - Kate Kilby is 1st, Rich Allen equal 1st , Charlotte Wilton equal 2nd and Brian Harris equal 3rd.
There is still time for other members to join in this competition – your best 8 runs count. The club has quite a few athletes apart from the old hands mentioned above who would do well in their age groups. You can get to support other local clubs by entering their races, and enjoy some friendly competition at the same time. Lift-sharing is often possible. The team size is only 3, so even if you’re not the fastest, just finishing sometimes makes a big difference to the team results (essentially you can’t log a relevant score with 3 men or 3 women).
You can find the fixtures at the AAA website here
A lot of the AAA races are also in the Club championships. The CLUB fixtures for this are here with latest info we have including if entries are open of when we expect them to.
NB you may need to scroll to the far right of the screen to see the status on entries
And the club standings so far this season are here
Congratulations to Pam Wheeler who currently leads the ladies champ standings. The men's is very close.
THIS WEEK'S RESULTS
There were lots of (final) long marathon training runs before people taper, but only one (local) race we spotted this week.
Westonbirt House 10km, Good Friday 3rd April
After logging almost 84mi the previous week on his path to the Newport marathon, men’s captain Aaron Willis tapered down to “only” 70mi this week, which included a 10k road race at Westonbirt House (not to be confused with the Arboretum). Aaron said
“Felt pretty fried at the start of the week, and conditions were pretty gusty so happy with the time. Look forward to some faster running after the marathon”.
To be close to 35 minutes (almost 81% age-graded) and 4th in a large field was a great result especially within a marathon training block and in windy conditions – great run Aaron!
Well done too to Joyce Matthews, who went 25 seconds faster than at Berkely last month to win both her age group and 3rd lady. We only have a photo of her prizes
Our third runner at this event was Pam Wheeler, who as well as taking the photo above kindly sent in an account of her day
“The last time I raced at Westonbirt House, I managed to overheat in the half marathon - fast forward several years and conditions could not have been more different - cold, windy, the lot!
Good Friday arrived and with superb organisation James Higgs (formerly with DB Max, who I used to work with as Sizzler RD) held a half marathon first followed at noon by the 10km. The half attracted a field of some 450 runners with over 600 in the 10km including Joyce and Aaron. I am not keen on these big corporate money grabbing race organisations but with an early bird offer at £25 I felt that this race was very good value especially with free parking in the school grounds.
Two laps out into Westonbirt village with a couple of steep inclines on each lap made for challenging conditions, combined with the very strong blustery wind, so based on my recent 10km times I thought I would tag along behind the 58 min pacer. Humm - that was not a good idea as she pulled off into the distance then the 60 min pacers sailed past me at about 8 km and my head went down. Stupidly, had I checked my watch I might not have been so disappointed - on a positive note and much to my delight I managed 3rd in my age group and just over half way in the total result of 620 finishers! {Ed. eggactly half way 313/616 !!}
On opening up the Easter egg medal I discovered 2 smarties – I had inside info that it was going to be Easter eggs but the ones that James had ordered were unfortunately too large to fit into the wonderful medal.
Overall, a fantastic event - entries for the winter race open in July but I believe that iCompete have a special medal lined up for the Longest Day race in June.”
For those wondering, the rather splendid Easter egg medal looked like this.
1 Peter Grist (Wells City Harriers) 33.15 (chip 33.15)
4 Aaron Willis (Cirencester AC) 35.19 (35.19) – 1st V45
40 Joyce Matthews 43.33 (43.26) – 3rd lady / 1st FV50
313 Pam Wheeler 1.00.40 (1.00.09)
616 finished www.icompete.co.uk
***************4 April Parkruns**************
The Cirencester event had a very speedy winner this week – a young man from Stroud-based Cotswold Allrunners clocking 16.24. {Ed. – I partly mentioned as this club wasn’t on my radar}.
As is fairly common now, several family pairs were running, all part of the “Parkrun vibe”.
Simon Campbell was first member home on his 75th parkrun, whilst his daughter Annabel was not far off her PB. Clare Stickney was our first lady home whilst daughter Bella was taking it easier as she was including parkrun within an 11 miler to top her weekly mileage up.
Ian Barrett was once again trying out a new parkrun venue, sandwiching the actual parkrun into a longer 12 miler. Nevertheless, Ian still ran the fastest parkrun by a member this week (nudging out Ollie Campbell at Chippenham). But ahead of Ian a younger parkrun tourist, from FODAC, was setting a new course record of 16.44 at the event mostly set up by our own Phil Davey, now on its 18th {running}. I’m not sure the club has anyone who could nab that record back atm?
Cirencester: 30 Simon Campbell 22.04, 53 Clare Stickney 23.46, 54 Casey Vatcher 23.47,61 Paul Timms 24.22, 70 Rob Forbes 24.43, 73 Annabel Campbell (J) 24.47,100 Susanna Austin 26.01, 107 Nicola Wood 26.16, 114 Isabella Stickney (J) 26.30,153 Dorian Matts 28.47, 218 Samantha Timms 31.16, 342 finished.
Tetbury: 30 David Moss 24.43, 46 Stephen Hale 25.20, 240 finished.
Carterton, Kilkenny Lane: 4 Ian Barrett 19.11, 104 Gordon Jones 29.46,131 Rachel Jones 34.07, 183 finished.
Cheltenham, King George’s Playing Fields: 64 Richard Edwards 29.35, 115 finished.
Chippenham: 11 Ollie Campbell 19.35, 337 finished.
Three Brooks, Bradley Stoke, Bristol: 265 Ruth Fulford 36.37, 326 finished.
Killerton, nr. Exeter: 138 Alan McAdam 27.08, 148 Rachel McAdam 27.52, 406 finished.
Bideford: 25 Ruaridh Wright (J) 21.46, 120 Isla Wright (J) 27.03, 268 finished.
Rickmansworth: 122 Martin Croucher 23.32, 610 finished.
****************Update to last week’s report*****************
The Cleevewold results for the race on 29th March are now available. For completeness
Cleevewold ‘14’, Cheltenham, 14 miles trail1 Richard Elsworthy (CLC Striders) 1.29.10 50 Andy Hindson (Cirencester AC) 2.11.5158 Karen Higuera 2.28.1776 finished
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