Cheltenham Half Marathon - 27 September 2015
There were personal bests galore for CLC Striders as for the second year running the club claimed the Team Prize at Cheltenham’s Half Marathon whilst also being the events ‘Club of the Year’. The four Brendan Ward coached athletes comprising the winning team were Will Ferguson (72:16 - PB) Iain Porter (78:55) Liza Barry (87:11) and Katie Truslove (88:23 - PB).
As the event’s official ‘Club Of The Year’ CLC Striders had a strong showing of 50 members running, with the aforementioned Will Ferguson leading the striders contingent to finish in fourth place overall, just 12 seconds behind the third place finisher. The next Strider over the line was Iain Porter who was 19th overall. Running in his first ever half marathon, Sam Baylis ran a superb race to finish in 81:19 closely followed by Charles Goodwin who demolished his personal best to finish in 82:02, a performance which puts Goodwin in the top 100 Vet50 runners over the half marathon distance in the UK this year. Another notable performance came from the ever improving Jon Howes who took over 3 minutes off of his PB to complete the race in 82:44. James Oram made a strong start to the race but found the pace hard going and faded in the latter stages still however finishing in a very respectable 83:24.
Breaking the 90 minute barrier were Richard Shardlow (85:44), Paul Northup (85:47 - PB), Jo Maddocks (86:20), Liza Barry (87:11) and Katie Truelove (88:23 - PB). John Willson broke his PB to finish just over the 90 minute mark in 90:28 with fellow Striders Paul Lockyer (90:30) and Ross Greening (90:31 - PB) hot on his heels. Amanda Steer finished as first lady in the Vet 45 category with a PB performance of 92:46. Completing the Striders contingent were Stuart Barr (94:07), Rachel Vines (95:40), Vicky Veness (96:34), Gavin Jerman (99:03 - PB), Zoe Gough (99:09 -PB), Paul Smith (99:12 - PB), Nicola Menzies (1:41:21 - PB), Greg Hodges (1:41:29), Alison English (1:41:30), Dan Farrelly (1:44:26), Joe Perkins (1:45:00), Rob Gladwin (1:46:28), Rebecca Boulton (1:46:30), Trish Sturgess (1:47:25), Dan Harte (1:51:56), Helen Howes (1:53:45), Helen Rawcliffe (1:54:29), Sue Clark (1:56:13), Kathryn Cookson (1:59:27), Charlie Haward (2:00:15), Joanna Thomson (2:02:22), Rachel Marlow (2:06:00), David Smeath (2:09:03) and Duncan Kay (2:47:43)
CLC Striders also provided the official pacers for the event and Will Pearce, Chris Hale, Alice Johnston, Joel Freeland, Rob Bircher, Andrew Paterson, Martin Bick, Bradley Coates, Emma Abbey and Paul Jenkins all helped plenty of runners within the 3200 plus field to achieve personal best times.