Berrow Blaze

After an taking interest in an email sent out by Club Captain Roy Northcott and having completed the C25K earlier in the year; Bridget Redding from the Jolly Joggers, liked the sound of a new local race - a 5K "potentially flat" trail race over Berrow Hill in Worcestershire.

Bridgett was throughly looking forward to the views and the promised cake at the end of the race. She also managed to persuaded an additional 8 of her fellow club members to join her, into their first venture into trail running.

Luckily for everyone else, they knew what they were letting themselves in for... a challenging, fun (if you like hills and mud!) friendly trail race over 5ish miles of spectacular Worcestershire countryside.

Dave Aguirre, Sheena Moseley, Sam Robinson, Amanda Marshall, Duncan Tharme, Jo Chandler, Lesley Allaway, Emma Smith (although unfortunately dropped out due to injury) were the runners to accompany her.

After frantic trail shoe shopping trips for the majority of the runners, on a wonderfully bright, sunny cold morning, we gathered at the start, meeting up with fellow club runners Paul and Karen Mason.

The inaugural run organised by Worcestershire Trailblazers saw 117 runners set off along an very undulating course, resulting in a very steep 600ft climb between miles 2/3, over Berrow Hill. Conditions were very testing underfoot and saw a fair number of runners slipping their way through the mud and puddles.

Paul Mason was 1st home for Tewkesbury in 42.25, followed by:

Dave Aguirre 53.51

Jo Chandler 57.24

Sheena Moseley 57.57

Duncan Tharme 1.02.20

Lesley Allaway 1.05.38

Karen Mason 1.08.18

Sam Robinson 1.15.15

After running the course together, Amanda and Bridget crossed the finish line in 1.31.43 with huge big smiles on their faces and to a round of applause from the spectators.

(Dan Chandler was persuaded to do it, but he saw sense and declined, but very kindly gave up his time to come along and take the photo's of us all instead!)