Gloucester Athletic Club’s Jeremy Mower is showing no sign of slowing down, even though he is well into his 55th year!

He followed up his personal best 28:22 set at the Linda Franks 5-mile Road Race with a personal best-equalling time over 10 miles when he clocked 59:13 in the Staverton 10-mile event to place 15th overall and second in the M50 age category.

Although the course was not icy as it had been for the Linda Franks race, the wind and rain didn’t help the runners though Linda Franks winner James Bellward certainly wasn’t affected as he stormed to another impressive win in a course record 49:29 to win by a clear two and a half minutes.

Mower headed a small group of City runners home. Pete Haynes knocked two minutes off his previous best when crossing the line in 23rd place in 62:35, Steve Haines placed 38th in 67:27 ahead of Graham Davis who knocked a massive three minutes off his best time when placing 43rd in 67:48. Helen Haines clocked 94:30 in 187th place while M70 Dave Spackman clocked 97:13 in 195th place, 228 runners finished.

Steve Millward produced an excellent run to place 45th overall in the Midland Cross-Country Championships at Prestwold Hall, Loughborough. Millward has been gradually working his way back to fitness following a series of injuries over the past six months and this was his best run of the winter.

Jack Evans and Owen Parry’s own battle throughout the race went right down to the wire, with Evans prevailing as he came home in 70th place, a stride ahead of Parry in 71st. Jason Tilley, who is currently clocking up high mileage as part of his London Marathon preparations, was the next club runner home, crossing the line in 144th place, Dave Gresswell placed 238th while M75 athlete Chris O’Carroll placed 366th.

Briony Bishop ran strongly in the difficult conditions to place 16th in the U20 Women’s race, Millie Porter took an excellent 8th place in the U17 Women’s event while Amelia Newell placed 18th in the U15 Girls’ race ahead of team-mate Keira Barry in 83rd.

In his first area championship, Josh Collenette acquitted himself well in the U17 Men’s race, placing 76th, as did Jacob Barry and Ben Darlow when finishing in 57th and 102nd places respectively in the U15 Boys’ race.

Club chairman Richard Blackwell said “It’s very encouraging to see our members competing at these championships. I hope this has whet their appetites to challenge themselves in the years to come.”

A group of the club’s youngest members represented the Gloucestershire teams at the South-West Counties U11s Sportshall final in Bristol.

The event comprises several athletics-based disciplines which form the basis of much of the youngsters’ winter training programme.

Amari Cambridge and Sienna Thomas both represented the County A team (girls) which retained their title from last year, while Piers Clutterbuck, Sebastian Keith and Theo Myles were in the Boys’ A team which placed second, an improvement of two places on last year’s result.

Other Gloucester club members in the county squad were Jasper Dyer, who competed for the Boys’ ‘B’ team, and Megan Hart and Heidi Wyman who were in the Girls’ ‘B’ team.

Owen Parry knocked over one minute off his previous best 10K time when he clocked 34:16 in 76th place at Speedway 10K road race near Chepstow, while at the latest Rogue Run 5-Miles night race at Beechenhurst in the Forest of Dean, Sophie Hope placed 44th, Gemma Collier 51st and Amy Walker 91st.

Gloucester Athletic Club’s 2020 annual general meeting will take place on Monday 24th February at the Fountain Inn, Westgate Street, Gloucester. All members are asked to attend the meeting which starts at 7.30pm.