A warm and sunny evening greeted the first race of our summer series on May 7th, with a perfectly symetrical field of 36 in the 2 Mile race and 36 in the Junior 1 Miler.
The 1 Miler was dominated by a big turnout from Bristol & West AC. In the U/13 girls, Izzy Di Bartolo broke the 6:30 barrier on our undulating course, finishing first in 6:28 ahead of Cora Lambourne (6:37) and Zuzanna Smialek (6:58). The U/13 boys top 3 all went under 6 minutes, the winner Elliott Colclough finishing in 5:45 ahead of clubmates Ali Ramdani (5:48) and Thomas Redfern (5:50). The U/16 honours went to Gabriella Ritter Sheratt (fourth overall in 5:34), Lola Simpson (5:36) and Darcy Simpson (5:49) for the girls and Barney Colclough (outright winner in 5:09), Oisin O'Halloran (very close second with 5:10) and Elijah Buscemi (5:29) for the boys. There were great performances throughout the field, including youngsters Charlie Bush (5:51) and Oscar Nash (6:01) both aged 10 on race day. Callum Skidmore did the double, finishing 6th in the 1-mile in 5:44 before challening the senior runners in the 2 miler to finish 12th overall in 12:54.
In the 2 miler there was a wider range of clubs - with Team Bath, Southville, Westbury Harriers, GWR, Vegan Runners and Charnwood AC all represented - but the mens' podium was a clean sweep for Bristol & West made up of Lee Gawler (11:00), Max McKinstry (11:19) and Robert Pope (11:22). Evergreen athlete Gary Hughes from Team Bath was our fastest 60+ runner, finishing 7th overall in 12:10, with second place in that category claimed by Paul Taylor- Morris of Southville RC (20:20). There was a strong field of 70+ men too, with Michael Wilcox (GWR) taking the honours in an excellent time of 16:56 ahead of strong challenges from clubmate John Hargreaves, Tom Burgess from Bristol & West and Charnwood's Roland Gibbard.
The women's race was won by GWR's Clare Meraz (12:50) ahead of GWR's Alice Doggrell (13:24), with third place going to Rebecca Williams from Westbury Harriers (13:29). Louise Cronin of Bristol & West won the 50-59 category in 14:46, with Kate Hoffen of Westbury Harriers a close second in 14:53 and another Westbury runner, Sandra Williams, in third place in a time of 15:30.
There were a number of family pairings, with junior runners competing in the 1-miler and one or other parent in the 2-miler, which bodes well for the Ice Cream Relay in July which as always includes a Family Team category!
Entries for our 1 miler / 2 miler events on 4th June and 25th June are open at FINDARACE.COM and team entries for the Relay (July 9th) are available now at FABIAN4 - links to all these are on our main event page https://uk.srichinmoyraces.org/races/bristol - just scroll down to the How to Enter section to sign up online.
Thanks for making our season-opener a great event, we look forward to welcoming you back for more summer evening racing on the Sri Chinmoy Peace Mile next month!