Youde takes fine third in Linda’s special race
» ALMOST Athletes held their popular Linda Franks 5-mile race in Hatherley and The Reddings as a field of more than 240 runners competed in the event, part of the Gloucestershire Amateur Athletics Association series.
For the first time in the event, there was a wheelchair category too for which Les Hampton of Cheltenham & County Harriers took first in 36.19 followed by Danny Reeves of Almost Athletes in 37:49.
In the ladies race, first home was Rachel Felton of Shaftesbury Barnet Harriers in 28:10, with Tracey Hinxman of Glos
AC second in 30:21 and Helena Youde of Almosts third in a PB of 31:04.
For the men, first was Steve Kenyon of Glos AC in 27:03, second was Joe Willgoss in 27:48 and third was Mark James in 27:57, both of Cheltenham & County Harriers.
Top three men for the Almost Athletes were Josh Hand, inset, 28:25, Matt Polson 29:16 and Jon Bird 29:46 while the top three ladies were Youde, Amy Sheer 33:45 (PB) and Stacey Osmond 34:13 (PB). There were a host of other PBS for the club, for Matthew Hickman in 30:31, Chris Mcmahon 37:43, Louise Bryan 36:00, Hayley Woolnough 39:32, Hannah Brown 43:23, Nat Stow 43:55, Sue Monaghan 43:44, Kevin Balchin 45:10, Deb Elliott 44:59 - her first sub 50 and Lynne Macedo 48:10.
Andrew Wilkinson and Ingrid Harris tackled the Gloucester half marathon both in 1:45 whilst Pete Blakeman in his debut at the distance went two minutes quicker in 1:43.
Nicky Staniforth competed for the first time in Almosts colours at the Chepstow 10k and was home in a PB of 50:25.
Allan Green completed the Funchal Marathon in Madeira on an eight-lap course in 4:58.
At parkrun this week there was tourism from the club by Danny Carroll at Limerick Eire, Deb Elliot and Hayley Woolnough at Kingsbury Water, Dave Rogers, Martin Thomas, Catherine Mason, Lepha Mccartan, James Clay, Mike Bryce at Brueton near Birmingham, Kim Mansell at Arrow Valley Redditch, Ellie Laney at Faelledparken in Copenhagen and Martyn Fisher at St Albans.