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Gloucester Athletic Club win men’s team prize at Linda Franks 5-mile road race

Author: Roger Jackson, Posted: Wednesday, 22nd January 2020, 09:00

Joel Townley

Gloucester Athletic Club had plenty to cheer when they took part in the Linda Franks 5-mile road race around the lanes of Up Hatherley and The Reddings because they won the men’s team prize.

Steve Kenyon was hoping to repeat his win from 2019 but despite running exactly the same time as when he stormed to victory then, he had not reckoned on an outstanding run by RAF’s James Bellward who stormed to a runaway victory in an impressive 24:10, with Kenyon a clear second in 27:04.

Not far behind Kenyon and producing a performance that belied his years and which included a sprint finish, was Jeremy Mower who, despite a less than ideal preparation, clocked a personal best 28:23 to place sixth overall and first M50.

Max Sheppard and Jason Tilley enjoyed another private battle with Sheppard prevailing on this occasion, clocking 28:30 in 9th place, with Tilley 11th in a personal best 29:05.

Just behind was Tracy Hinxman who produced a strong run to place 13th overall and first LV45 with a 29:09 clocking, an improvement of over one minute on her previous best, while Mike Mansfield placed 15th in 29:22, his fastest time in nine years.

Further Gloucester AC placings were: 23rd Steve Haines 30:48; 38th Anna Midgley 32:41 (pb); 89th Chris Davis 36:34; 170th Dave Spackman 42:47.

Amy Walker had originally intended to use the Gloucester Half Marathon as a training run as part of her spring marathon preparations but the best laid plans often go awry and she ran harder than planned.

She was, therefore, more than happy with her 125th place in her second fastest-ever clocking of 1:36:01. Maryam Ouiles, one of the club’s junior coaches, also ran and in her first event clocked 2:11:52.

Some of the club’s members opened their indoor season over the weekend and English Schools’ Triple Jump champion Joel Townley used the 60 metres event to sharpen his sprinting speed and came away with a personal best time of 7.38 seconds.

He later recorded a long jump of 6.58 metres to take the silver medal in the South-West England championships that were incorporated in the meeting.

Jo Willoughby’s main target for the winter is the European Masters Indoor Championships in Portugal in March where she will be competing in the long and triple jumps. At Cardiff, however, she chose to compete in the 200 metres, placing 2nd in her heat in 30.12 seconds.

Tina Wickens found herself isolated in the 800 metres, but finished strongly to clock 2:34.46, some two seconds faster than her time in last year's opening race, to take the bronze medal in the SW senior women's championships. She later won her 400 metres heat in 66.47 seconds.

A group of the club’s talented youngsters travelled to Birmingham’s Hi-Performance Centre to compete in the Midland Counties

Joshua Robinson produced the stand-out performance at the meeting when he cleared 2.60 metres in the U17 pole vault to set a new club age group best.

Further results for the group were – U17W: Emily Herron 1.25m high jump; 3.91m long jump; Ella Julin 8.53 seconds; U15G: Ella-Grace Edwards 1.20m high jump; 4.28m long jump; U13G: Ula Mohammed 1.25m high jump; 3.94m long jump; U17M: Kyle Neal 2.20m pole vault; 4.30m long jump; Joshua Robinson 4.84m long jump; U15B: Tom Curneen 1.30m high jump; 4.73m long jump; U13B: Oscar Wilson 3.24m long jump.

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Gloucester Athletic Club win men’s team prize at Linda Franks 5-mile road race

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