We’ve enjoyed almost perfect Spring weather these past two Saturdays, and TRC members have eschewed the hot-cross buns and headed instead for the local parks to record some excellent parkrun results. And then scoffed the buns!

It is so encouraging to see TRC members be rewarded for their consistent hard work in training. Carol Mosses recently ran the Cardiff half-marathon – racing alongside her children to raise money for the Alzheimer’s Society.   Yet then that pesky Covid struck, and just when you thought that would wipe out her excellent progress, Carol got up off her sick bed and stormed to a course PB of 37:05 at Chipping Sodbury.     It was also good to see Jay Bartley plotting his way back to full fitness with a run of 27:27; there’s a lot more to come, and hopefully that will be soon.

Strava seemed to suggest that Chris Pritchard waded through the sea for much of his 30:34 PB at Woolacombe Dunes.  I suspect that was a GPS gremlin, although striding through the surf would only add a little extra to the already brutal course they have devised at Woolacombe.   Still, excellent selection of post-race coffee shops to choose from, and after a PB that flat white tastes all the creamier.

Speaking of Strava art, the organisers at Wotton Parkrun say their course map resembles a butterfly.   I’d say it is more like a pterodactyl fossil, but either way Wotton is a hilly, off-road course that means very few male runners have ever got under the 20 minute barrier.  Simon Pinnington won the race in 20:07, which is the umpteenth time he has peppered the 20 min mark and not quite hit it, but at that pace he will continue to win that particularly tough event more often than not.

Mallards Pike is winning a lot of plaudits as one of the friendliest and most picturesque parkruns around.  TRC’s Starsky and Hutch, Roger Glew and Tom Witherbed, popped over the bridge to sample the park’s coffee and cake concessionary stand, and decided to run the race at the same time.   Both performed admirably on a single-lap course that is either uphill or downhill, with precious little flat    Roger ran 25 mins, and Tom finished in 28:05.

The following Saturday – Easter Saturday – saw club members out in force, and the far-flung locations probably give us a clue as to where their extended families live! 
 
Paul Reeves ran 23:58 at a packed Southampton parkrun; Kevin Arnold ran a rapid 22:08 at Wolverhampton; Melanie Wilson finished in an outstanding 4th place in the Gateshead parkrun, running 22.10, and it is no mean feat to do that in the running hotbed than produced the likes of Foster, Spedding and Cram.   The ever-improving Phil Blackburn ran an incredible 17:15 at Burgess and finished 5th overall.

There were still plenty of runners at our local events too.   Suzie Cundy ran an excellent personal best of 30:09 at the twisty-turny, stop/start course at Berkeley Green.   Mel Lloyd also ran there and finished in 33:27.    Paul Harrod recorded 18 mins precisely at Severn Bridge, and despite collapsing his body to the ground and having a toddler tantrum the implacable race director refused to accept his Strava time of 17:59.   Simon Pinnington ran a fantastic PB of 18:54 at Chipping Sodbury, and is now just a fraction off that benchmark age-graded score of 80% which suggests the athlete is of a national standard for their age and gender.  Paul Clark ran that race for the first time and was 32nd overall in 21:28.  

Finally, there was still an excellent turnout at the Mundy playing fields for our ‘home’ parkrun.   Sean Leadbetter and Ben Bohane ran together at the front of the race, Sean just out-sprinting Ben to finish in his course PB of 18:35, with Ben just three seconds behind. Asten Haynes was 5th in 19:34. Special mention must also go to Paul Saville who ran the Westonbirt half marathon the previous day in just over 1hr 35 mins, and then turned out the next morning and ran 26:22 – a time many would be delighted with after a full week’s taper. Natalie Bennett was just 36 minutes outside her PB, but that was, of course, because she was kindly volunteering as the tail-walker. Hopefully we’ll get to see her running the race at full gas sometime very soon.

p.s I neglected to mention in previous reports the excellent results in the Frampton Globe Trot: an off-road, 8 mile race, that took place at the start of this month when the ground was a lot muddier than it is now. Apologies to the ladies, but I don’t have separate results for the women’s race, just the overall finishing places. Melanie Wilson was the first TRC runner, and finished in 19th place overall, in 1hr and 2 minutes, and would have been much higher in the standalone women’s race. The other members of Team TRC were Lizzie Williams 30th 1hr 06; Roger Glew 50th 1hr 12; Chris Foley 61st 1hr 15; Hugh McPherson 73rd 1:19; Kev Cundy and Sonya Bryson finishing together in 92nd and 93rd places in 1hr 21 mins. These are all excellent times for an off-road race of that distance.

We couldn’t have chosen a better evening to hold our ‘Mob Match’ against Bitton Road Runners.   The first evening after the clocks go forward is always infused with hopeful anticipation of long, languid summer days to come.  We had glorious, balmy weather, and the pleasure of finishing an evening race, and eating a restorative ice-cream, with the sun still present and correct in the sky.

The only downside was a clash with Mother’s Day, which ruled out quite a few of our strongest runners – either doing their duty to their own mother, basking in their offspring’s adulation, or perhaps snoozing off the effects of that extra glass of lunchtime prosecco.  One or two heard the race route was planned by a psychopath, and so stayed away in fear.  In fact our hosts picked a fine ‘out and back’ route along the Bristol to Bath cycle path.

Mob matches are not for the faint hearted.  The rivalry with Chepstow is a bitter one – whose castle has the superior buttresses; whose Secondary School is in a greater state of disrepair – and yet there was even more at stake this time.  Bitton provocatively staged the event at the train station – a cruel dig at the Beeching railway cuts that afflicted Thornbury – yet our intrepid crew rose above the psychological games.   Huddling together for support and comfort we ignored the caustic jibes flung across the carpark from the opposition:  ‘How lovely to see you’; ‘please do stay for cream-cakes afterwards’.   That sort of thing. 

In truth their mob was bigger than ours; home advantage surely being the deciding factor, and so it was always likely Bitton would take the overall event victory.   However there were still individual and team competitions up for grabs.

Jo Plumbley had a wonderful race, pacing her effort to perfection, to win the 4.25 mile race well inside 30 minutes.   Jo led home Hannah Hamilton in second place – although Hannah had a little difficulty in the final mile which probably cost her some time, although she still went inside the 30 minute barrier, which is 7 minute mile pace.  Ros Rowland stormed home in third place in 33:57 and the clear winner in her age category.   The TRC 1-2-3 meant that our ladies secured the team competition before Bitton could get the first of their counters to the end of the board.   

Catherine Dack, 35:06, and Karen Carr, 40;31, also ran excellent races to ensure the team title really was safe, while it was great to see Samantha Glew run in what I think was her competitive debut for the club?  She kindly paced her husband Roger round the course; Rog being told he couldn’t have an ice-cream unless he ran the whole way without stopping!

The men’s race attracted a larger field, and so the outcome of that competition would also decide the overall Mob Match results.  Sadly TRC missed most of our fastest runners, when any one of the likes of Nick, Sean, Ben or George could have conceivably have won the race.

However there is no one in the club – probably no in the county – who could beat Phil Blackburn in a sprint finish.   Bitton’s top athlete went out from the off, and set a relentless sub 6-min mile pace throughout.  Yet Phil tracked him all the way, and like Steve Ovett in the early 80s, just put on the after-burners in the final 200m to stride away to a six second victory, in 25 mins and 2 secs.

Behind the top 2, was a battle for the top male veteran.  Paul Harrod had trained at altitude in Iten, Kenya for the past fortnight, such is his dedication to the club, and was rewarded with a fourth place in 25:33.  It looked hopeful that he might pip the Bitton vet for third, but he had no match for his rival’s final 800m surge to the line.

Asten Haynes continues to improve and impress, and he was next TRC male home in 27:16.  Alan Gatling and Tom Usherwood have both been recording strong parkrun times recently, and that showed with their 8th and 9th place finishes, respectively, in 28:18 and 28:56.

This was the point where the lack of Thornbury runners began to count.   Nick Langridge was 14th, an amazing result for a V70, in a time just outside 30mins.  Kevin Wood and Chris Foley also completed the course ahead of several runners they had at least a decade, if not more, on!   Yet, alas, our numbers ran out, and the hordes of Bitton runners surged across the line, whooping in triumph; their overall team victory some consolation for lack of access to the motorway network and a paucity of artisan coffee shops.

In all seriousness, a huge thank you to the wonderful team at Bitton.    They put on a splendid event, and could not be more welcoming and gracious to us.    We hope we can offer them a return match in the future.  In the meantime look out for a date in August for a return match with those scoundrels from Chepstow.   They’re mocking the low gradient of our high street, and bizarre layout of our parks.  Will you let that stand, Thornbury?!