Chedworth Roman Trail & Woodchester Park

Cirencester AC’s popular trail run, the Chedworth Roman, was a victim of the ‘Beast from the East’ back in spring 2018 and for the first time is was staged in the summer after it’s postponement.

Originally, a healthy entry of Tewkesbury runners were set to run but with holidays, injuries etc, the September 2nd start only mustered 4 runners from the club; benefiting from the warmer weather and the firmer less-wintery conditions underfoot, Stuart Dudfield returned to the HQ finish first in an impressive time of 1hr 19 minutes in 39th place. Stuart finished ahead of Nigel Tillott who, by his own admission, is not at his best. Nigel was just 6 seconds behind Stuart but with a too bigger gap to bridge.

Surprisingly a couple of minutes down on the Tewkesbury pair, Mark Gardiner finished in 1:21 hr for 51st place. Mark was 50/50 about starting the race after a torrid effort in the previous afternoon’s Road Race Relays leaving his right hamstring not 'right'.

Cathy Dudfield was the only TRC girl to start and she ran the 10.5 mile course in 1:34 hr as 39th place female.

On the same day and, in its regular September slot, Stroud AC held their trail run through Woodchester Park. A couple of miles shy of the Chedworth distance, the race just had James Head fly the Tewkesbury flag. He ran steady to take the V40 first place with 5th overall. His time of 54:58 minutes was a fine 40 seconds improvement from his 2016 effort. He was pleased to be awarded some local honey.