Pendock Chickens

The Pendock Spring Chicken races were the centre of attention for Tewkesbury this weekend, not only because the club’s own Nigel Tillott was the race organizer but also it featured as a key race in the club championship.

Staged from Pendock Junior School, the two lap 10km event was the focus; nicely combining country lane, farm track and bridleway, the runners have two cracks at the two hills en route to the infamous finish twist into the school.

Top of the class for the club was in-form John Gundy a couple of minutes ahead of Chris Goscomb.

For the women it was Natalie Jenks who taught in-form Sharon Peters a lesson. Natalie has an NVQ in competitiveness and she certainly showed it as she arrived at the school grounds with a gap on Sharon. Although Natalie was first in for Tewkesbury, she did miss the podium with a 5th place in the women’s race. Sharon crossed the line seconds later with a creditable 6th placing. One minute later Fran Osborne finished though by her own admission, she has her eyes on the London Marathon and diligently managing her niggles. To complete a quartet of quality women, Carol Cowley followed a minute later as she put in an astonishing twenty minute gap to capture another age category win.

Rachel Brownett, Elaine Vincent and Suzanne Tharme all broke the hour for the course with Rachel making a welcome return to racing after some injury set-backs.

Having a race within the race, Steve Maber and Russell Steele continued their close rivalry with a tightly contested tour of West Gloucestershire. Russell fared better on this occasion. Three minutes later Alec Vincent crossed the finish line to notch another respectable result.

Gary Pavey finished seconds behind swift junior Arron Peters and equal seconds in front of Carol.

Sam Connolly had a late change of heart to start the race and surprised with an excellent time.

Jude Rodrigues followed his sound run in Elmore with a strong performance in Pendock. Phillip Howells ran well in an event which is relatively on his doorstep after his recent exploits.

Completing the Tewkesbury show in the 10km was Wes Reid as he enjoyed a decent weekend of London Marathon training.

In the one lap 5km race, Tewkesbury featured again.

Jane Sauer ran her second competitive race of the weekend and Clare and Luc Marchant both recorded nice times though Clare did run in her comfort zone.

The 1km race also had Tewkesbury connections with impressive junior lady performances from Chloe Merriman, Summer Connolly and a controversial Lily Jenks-Broughton. For the junior gentlemen, Jacob Webb showed good form for an under three. Webb senior (Dan) on the other hand found the going tough and the history books will record an early win for the boy.