City of Salisbury Athletics and Running Club

City of Salisbury’s Richard Davidson produced one of his best performances on the road at the Hayling 10mile in what proved to be good conditions for speedy running by the sea.
His time of 60min 56sec not only set a new mark at the distance but also gave him fourth place in his age group behind winner James Baker of Chichester’s 54.09.
Craig Weatherburn was next Salisbury finisher in 67.46, just outside his best, followed by Richard Larcombe 69.14pb, Craig Murphy 72.08pb and Barry Vincent 81.05.
In the ladies’ race, Melenie Murphy clocked 86.05, Anne Norman 101.29 and Lesley Brown 104.52.
Over a much tougher course at the Stickler multi terrain 10mile hill race in Dorset, Reece Ingram took a hard-earned tenth spot in 72.53 behind Clapham’s Edward Rees in first place with 67.16.
Barry Hards was timed at 82.59, Steve Mitchell 87.11, Chris Maple 87.57 and Ella-May Hards 89.57.
On Saturday [10th] the club switches its focus to cross country running with a big Hampshire league fixture at Aldershot.
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The weekend cold snap was a key feature of many running events, not least in the two-day Original Mountain Marathon over the high moorland of South Wales.
City of Salisbury’s Stuart Holloway and Ruth Thom were the running club’s only representative pairing and they were happy enough to be able to say that despite severe conditions underfoot as well as snow flurries, they survived everything the course could throw at them.
The only slightly less cold roads of the Clock Change 10k Challenge at Calne allowed Richard Larcombe to record a personal best of 42min 25sec as Salisbury’s fastest of the day.
Jonathan Kershaw was next in 45.57 and he was followed by Kieran McManus 54.46pb and Lesley Brown 61.41.
The 5k event at the same venue gave Duncan Watson a promising debut of 29.04.
In the hilly Breamore 10k, Mike White finished well up, stopping the clock at 43.16.
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Personal best performances came thick and fast for a batch of City of Salisbury roadrunners who made the most of last weekend’s ideal running conditions at Portsmouth and Abingdon.

In the Great South Run 10mile on the south coast contested by a field of over 20,000, James Presley was the club’s quickest to finish in 59min 23sec, setting a good new mark at the distance.

Lee Syrett was next, with a pb 63.00, followed by Iain Weber 66.57pb, Richard Larcombe 70.24pb, Craig Murphy 74.26, Stuart Robertson 74.56pb, Barry Vincent 82.42, Lucy Orchard 86.58pb, Chris Marple 89.19pb and Lisa Milner 91.44pb.

On the equally flat, fast roads of the Abingdon marathon, Craig Weatherburn produced a huge improvement to his best at 26miles with a most promising 3.16.26 and James Ballard opened his account at the distance with 3.28.10.
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Ruth Thom continued her sequence of good runs this season when she took third place in the Salisbury half marathon women’s race, writes John Ruskin.
On a near-perfect day for tackling the 13.1mile distance, the City of Salisbury club runner athlete achieved another well-paced personal best, her excellent time of 87min 40sec placing her well up among the total of over 900 finishers.
In the men’s race, after winning the event for the past two years Aaron Wilson was unable to make it hat-trick, clocking 71.25 for fourth place, and he was followed by Michael Beckett in fifth spot with 73.12.
Rob Drag was next for the club in 80.50, just edging out James Hassan’s 80.53, and then came Richard Davidson in 82.10 and Lee Syrett 83.28.
Following Ruth Thom in the women’s race, Sarah Kemp stopped the clock in 101.22 and she was followed by Anne Patrickson 105.22, Yvette Emmerson 106.13, Heather Hitchins 108.57, and Charlene Matthews 113.48.
A record 46 Salisbury club runners completed the course – full results on the event website.
At the same distance but over the hills and tough terrain of the Clarendon half marathon, Reece Ingram ran strongly to take second place in a creditable 89min 36sec.
In the full marathon between Winchester and Salisbury, Peter Atkinson ran 3.21.17 and Barry Davies 4.29.42.
Meanwhile at the Bournemouth 10k, Craig Weatherburn recorded 40min 6sec, Jonathan Croom 40.14, Melanie Murphy 52.19, Giles Graves 56.22, Andrew Wells 56.34 and Sue Sheppard 71.27.
In the marathon Charlotte Boardman finished in 3.55.44 and Grace Cousins in 4.42.12.
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