THE ever-popular Cardiff half marathon beat the weather on Sunday, sandwiched between gale-force winds overnight and the arrival of heavy rain in the afternoon. 22,000 runners instead enjoyed light winds, an occasional slight drizzle and perfect running temperatures.
Seven runners from Tavistock Athletic Club made the journey up into Wales to join over 22,000 other finishers in the prestigious event - one of the ‘big six’ half marathons spread across Europe and faultless organisation to match.
Mark West and Ian Collacott, running together for most of the race, turned in impressive times. Ian pushed ahead at the end to a record Personal Best for the event and his second fastest HM time, finishing in 1hr 26min 21s. Mark followed him in, just a few seconds behind in 1:26:40, achieving 27th out of 1143 in his M50 age category.
Next in was Emma Webber, gaining an excellent sub-2-hour time of 1:54:40. Sarah Prior and Andy Hughes followed, finishing close together in 2:17:05 and 2:17:50 respectively. The final two TAC runners to finish, ahead of thousands of others and still achieving creditable times, were Ann Ruddock in 2:31:46 and Sarah Walton in 2:41:30.
Sarah, Ian, Andy, Mark and Emma are the Cardiff finishers pictured, from left to right.
Elsewhere, Adam Holland celebrated the 20th anniversary of Parkrun at the venue where it all started - Bushy Park in London. Running the 5k course with 1,818 other runners, he finished in third place in a time of 15min 49s, 21s behind the winner.
Sunday saw the start of the cross country season for Tavistock AC -the first race in the Westward League, held at Newnham Park, Plympton. Long spikes were essential kit for competitors given the conditions and there were 50 athletes taking part from the club.
It all began with the combined U11 boys and girls race and Olivia Walkerdine continued her good form, finishing 15th overall.
The U17 men, U17 women and senior women ran next on an increasingly treacherous course. TAC’s trio of Reuben Sebag-Montefiore (12th), Ollie Houlberg (14th) and Connor Duffin (18th) paced well to provide an excellent team score.
Jasmine Gray (35th) was the first home in the ladies' team before Jack Antony (5th), Tristan Bigham (9th) and Charlie Cleland (12th) made sure the U13 boys started the league with a solid performance.
With the senior men competing over 5.5 miles, the course was really sapping energy levels. Ben Neale (12th) and newcomer Chris Starling (62nd) were particularly outstanding. The U15 girls and boys were the final races and Zoe Bigham was second home for the former. Thomas Hennessey (1st), Freddie Whybrow (5th) and Eldon Young (8th) did superbly to lead the U15 boys.
A special mention must go to Archie Neale in this race who was spiked as he fell but got up and finished courageously before being taken to A&E for repairs.
