Broadway or Bust
It’s all going off-road for the club’s busiest stars this weekend. Nine runners were fortunate to snap-up Broadway 1/2M & Marathon places. Carefully organized by www.cotswoldrunning.co.uk and blessed by storm Angus the night before, our runners set off from Broadway and climbed the Cotswolds twice during the 1/2M alone.
Our lone marathon runner was Captain Roy Northcott and he carried-on south when the others swung north at Stanway. Roy needed to tackle some of the Cotswold Way around the Winchcombe area – not for the faint hearted – before working his way back to Broadway. With conditions as such (damp), he did incredibly well to time just over five hours.
The 1/2M starred some of the club’s form runners; all eight completed the event and all scored places inside the top 50. At the sharp end of the race, experienced multi-terrain hill runner Nigel Tillott was followed by one of the club brightest stars of 2016, Mark Parker. Ultimately Mark outran Nigel however, they both crossed the finish in Broadway inside the top ten. Nigel described his run as “perverse satisfaction” and enjoyed the camaraderie of the day. As for Mark, well some of the area’s main protagonists are starting to be concerned with his rolling improvements!
Alec Vincent and Stuart Dudfield ran strongly in tandem for the first ten miles. The last three miles saw Stuart lay down some speed to which Alec felt as a three minute gap developed by the time he had stopped his GPS. Impressive stuff from Stu.
As the race developed, the eight half marathon runners formed pairs and the next pair to finish was Paul Mason and Jay Russell. Paul, although starting the first climb steady, is a good off-roader so it’s fair to say Jay performed well to stay with the V50 man over the 1,800 feet of ascending.
All girl pairing Cathy Dudfield and Karen Likeman were in their elements. Finishing just half a mile behind the Mason/Russell pair, Karen continued her Stroud 1/2M form and so did Cath for that matter with another late season prodigious display.
The girls ran in formation with Karen leading the way and all credit to both as they left nothing behind apart from droplets of sweat to secure sweet top 50 places in one of the toughest events in some of the toughest conditions underfoot.
½ Marathon
7th Mark Parker 1:49
9th Nigel Tillott 1:52
14th Stuart Dudfield 1:58
21st Alec Vincent 2:01
38th Jay Russell 2:14
39th Paul Mason 2:14
45th Karen Likeman 2:18
46th Cathy Dudfield 2:18
102 finished.
Marathon
57th Roy Northcott 5:12
79 finished.
In this year’s Swindon 10km race (road race) Mike Bryce recorded 41:31 mins. That’s a healthy time from the elusive Gloucester based runner.
Due west of Broadway Tower, three intrepid club runners found some good climbs on the Malverns – Michael Jackson, Vlad Venglar and photogenic Jenksey covered 12 miles and climbed 1,500 feet.
