Tewkesbury Half Marathon

Tewkesbury High Street welcomed another impressive bunch of club runners back from their 13.1 race towards Bredon Hill. Straight away the attention is drawn to an impressive trio who all ran personal best times. Arguably all three performances stand-out for very different reasons; Carly Merriman ran her best time just 6 months after giving birth to Florence – she was the top female for Tewkesbury as she kept working hard over the latter miles to time 1:52 hr.

Gary Duxbury in the V60 category surprised sports science as he wound back the years and finally lowered his 1:38 PB to 1:36 to claim 3rd V60.

Then, when anyone would think Chris Nicholls would be taking time-out after his heroic exploits in the Newport Marathon last Sunday, he starts the race in an ambitious frame of mind and takes his PB down a notch.

With those three taking the headlines, an acknowledgement must be given to Phil Prince and Ian Caley who showed how comfortable they were with the distance despite being relatively new to it.

James Head ran with great equanimity and held the leading female and former winner in his vison before dispatching her comfortably.

Russell Steele only just managed enough training to tackle the distance and showed his ability with 1:35 hr.

Noel Green, again juggling niggles, ran a fine race to cut under 100 minutes.

Nick Matthews entered at the last minute and gambled his fitness after dropping-out of last week’s Newport Marathon.

Captain Roy Northcott ‘easily’ ran under his target 2 hours following his exploits last week (see previous news).

Julie Symonds racing just a week after a great performance in the Wales Marathon, perfectly cut 2 hrs with Ian on her heals.

Sharon Lockley is back in town and already she’s showing great form.

Cameron Pay had little trouble in the typical May sunshine and without the predominate South-West wind, along the Bredon Road back into town he held a neat pace.

Great to see Calvin Blanford fit and tackling the course in good spirits.

Jude Rodrigues had the better of Roy for much of the race but was victim of the captain’s explosive finish line sprint.

Neil Mcfarlane and James Aubury didn’t appreciate the sunshine as much as the basking spectators however, the guys worked hard and will be back at it as soon as their kit has been through the laundry.