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The Cotswold Way Relay

The Cotswold Way Relay is  in its 33^rd  year. It is a 10 stage relay race covering all 103 miles of the Cotswold Way from Chipping Campden to Bath Abbey. It works as 10 back-to-back races, with each stage having a mass start at the expected arrival time of the 1st runner from the previous stage.It takes in many hills, woodlands, fields, and tracks, all offering spectacular views of the countryside.

Apart from a few busy road crossings there are no marshals, or additional markers, so route finding is all part of the spirit of the event. The race route follows the National Trail except for a couple of well indicated changes made for safety reasons.

Overall unofficial time: 19:03:12

Another year for RSE on the cotswold way. RSE fielded 2 mixed teams this year. Some first timers; some seasoned runners.

Cotswold Way conquered! Well done everyone!

The 2 teams

Keep on running somewhere else
1. James Ball
2. Alan Powderhill
3. Jo Beames
4. Sharon Smith
5. Matt Blackmore
6. Elaine Chapman
7. Rebecca Southerington
8. Becca Wilson
9. Jade Beaumont
10. Teresa Hazelwood.

This team finished in 19:37:48 , in 33/36 position

Running Somewhere up that hill

1. Nia glover
2. Elliot Gardiner
3. Mark Foyn
4. Liz Farooq
5. Jamie Donald
6. Paul Billinghurst
7. Sophie Dickenson
8. Nadine Brown
9. Rachel Bodey
10. Mark Garrett

They finished 30/36 in a time of 19:03:12

And here is one of our captain’s  comment

Some fantastic running up some tricky hills. Brilliant camaraderie all day and a lovely get together in the evening.
Massive well done to our latest queen of the Cotswold way Teresa Hazelwood.

Elaine Chapman

I am sure that everyone involved would like to give a huge “shout out” to Elaine for organising all of this.  I definitely would, as she so quickly provided a confused person with the information he needed for this report.

Here are a couple of photos with individual times provided.  At the end of the report are some more photos for what must have been a great day of achievement and, hopefully, fun.  Terrific.

Elliot Gardiner     2:15:11

Sharon Smith      2.09.10

Alan Powderhill  2:14:38

After doing my first stage of the CWR last year and really enjoying it, I decided to try and do each stage in sequence. We were very thankful that the temperature had dropped since the recce last week, but that didn’t make it too much easier! As it turns out, stage 2 happens to be one of the toughest stages! Thanks goes to Alan “PB” Powderhill for dragging me up those mountains! ⛰️😅 Belas knap nearly killed me off! 🥵 But all worth it for the stunning views at the top! 😍
Definitely a much hillier stage than Stage 1 last year! 🫣 Let’s hope Stage 3 is all downhill next year! 😂
Special thanks to our club captains the Chapmans for organising it all and for putting on a celebratory bbq afterwards!

Elliot Gardiner

Stage 4 is tough. AirBalloon is a bit hairy but lots of marshalls
were at the road junctions keeping us safe. Nice finish in beautiful Painswick

Sharon Smith

My first involvement with CW relay. I did Stage 2 with Elliot, and really enjoyed it! Doing the recce the week before certainly prepared me for the hills, and how to deal with the route. Great to be apart of a large team effort. Well done to everyone, still not convinced trail is my favourite but maybe I’ll get there some day.

Alan Powderhill

Evesham 10 K

An accurate chip timed route around the streets, parks and riverside paths of historic and beautiful Evesham.

Sarah Juggins ran the course in 01.00.18.  Great stuff, Sarah.

This is one of my favourite races. It’s very well organised the route is fantastic it has a few hills and a mean one on the last km. According to my watch I set my fastest 5km today.

Sarah Juggins

 

An entry from the previous week

Badminton 10 K

The Relish Running Badminton Marathon, Half Marathon, 10km, 5km, and Fun Run, is set within the stunning private grounds of the Badminton Estate in Gloucestershire.  It offers runners a unique opportunity to explore a landscape rich in history, with routes that traverse solid stone paths, woodland trails, and open grass meadows.

Alison Booth entered the 10 K and did it in the excellent time of 00:57:45

This was a lovely run through the Badminton Estate. The day was well organised with waves of 100 runners starting every 10 minutes over 2km, 5km, 10km, half marathon and marathon. The routes were well signposted and marshalled, but it was difficult going through woods, across fields and tracks – a lot of it was uneven underfoot. I finished 2nd in my age group. I’m very pleased with my “podium finish”! And it was very hot!

Alison Booth

Parkruns

Reading parkrun

Darren JENNER                00:23:43

Felicity CROTTY               00:31:34

Gloucester North parkrun

Cheri EDWARDS               00:30:05

Weymouth parkrun

Andy SWORN                   00:30:36

Lanhydrock parkrun

Anne-Marie DAVIES        00:35:06

Fell Foot parkrun, Newby Bridge

Julie TAYLOR                     00:39:

Portsmouth Lakeside parkrun

Samantha WARD             00:40:30

Cirencester parkrun

Jon CAMPBELL                 00:21:30

Phil HUDSON                   00:23:05

Daniel DRAYTON              00:23:07

Paul ROBERTSON            00:24:20

Steve SANDERCOCK        00:24:23

Claire SHARP                     00:24:25

Richard SHARP                 00:24:39

Anne GARDINER              00:25:33

William COBBETT            00:26:06

Katy MILLER                     00:27:40

Alison BOOTH                  00:28:14

Rachel SMITH                  00:28:14

Stratford Park parkrun, Stroud

Vicki MASON                   00:31:39

Some more photos from that Cotswold relay

Cirencester Summer Sizzler

The sun shone on this Wednesday evening race, which is part of our Club Championship and there were plenty of RSE runners taking part, with great support from other RSE members.

The junior races (150-ish entrants) took place before the adult race and showed that the future is bright in our area. Well done to our very own Robbo for organising the junior race.

“Absolutely amazed to manage a 45 minute 10k, something I never thought was possible. A new PB by over a minute! Some great racing with Jon and Jen, helping me dig in.
The second time up that hill never gets any easier, at least the sun had gone away by then. Great evening with the RSE runners.”

Alan P.B. Powderhill

“What great support from RSE, and advice just when I most needed it, (thank you Dave).
Now it’s done I remember all the good bits but looking at the grim expression on my face in the photos reminds me of how hard it was.  That road after the hill seemed to go on forever.  So helpful having someone to follow, thank you Zoe.”

Sue Navin

“A pb by 2min2secs 😃”

Phil Scoble

“What a great event, fabulous atmosphere and the huge turnout from RSE at the Sizzler, that did not disappoint.
It was a hot and sticky evening, and I felt stronger on second lap surprisingly but slower than last year. Finished 106 and 6th in my category with a very strong field as usual.”

Phil Hudson

“I only came second in the Mark Garrett category, but at least I finally got to meet the other one before the race, which was fun. Not only is he faster than me, he’s younger and better looking.”

Mark Garrett

Blaydon Race

“This is very much a Geordie club race starting which started in 1981. It starts on the Quayside in Newcastle with spectacular views of the bridges over the Tyne and the Sage. The race finishes in Blaydon. The route race follows the same route described in the famous northern song of 1862 by George Ridley ‘ the Blaydon races’ and is always held on the 9th June. Just before the start of the race the runners join in with the song. Unfortunately the weather was awful, the cold and rain seemed to dampen the sprit of the race and like everyone else I was keen to get started. This was a race I had tried to enter through the ballot for many years and was fortunate to get a place this year.”

Park Runs

Tamar Trails

Harcourt Hill

Swansea Bay

Cirencester

Fire Service College

Centre Vale

Stratford Park

Wedding!

Finally, huge congratulations to Nia, who married Matt on Saturday 7th. Best wishes to the happy couple.

Fairford 10K

The 10K route starts and ends in Fairford  and travels along a rural route to Quennington and back – undulating with some steeper inclines. It is part of the Fairford festival. The race, which was first run in 2012, is organised by Running Somewhere Else masterminded by race director Kevin Joynes-Creed with his team.   According to my fairly dubious calculations there were 40 or so members of the club participating in various ways, plus a number  taking part in the run as well.  Really nice prize giving ceremony at the end.  And it didn’t rain! Great atmosphere. A great morning.

First time for me to take on the Fairford 10k. I’d been warned about the hills, and many of my marathon training runs took me through Bibury, through Coln St Aldwyns and up to Quennington. I feared the worse for THAT hill… (if you know, you know!).
Thankfully the route does not take on that incline, and these hills were not anywhere near as bad as the Stroud beer race.

Great turnout, fantastic organisation and support from team RSE!

A great event – thank you!
Oh – and a PB for me too – breaking a sub 50 min 10k!

Tom Burdett

Mark Foyn                        00:45:24.72

Tom Burdett                     00:49:15.19

Phil Newman                    00:51:21.36

Sarah Kaminski                00:51:30.93

Jess James                        00:56:21.80

Claire Miers                      01:02:49.76

OMM Lite

The OMM Lite took place between Saturday 31st May and Sunday 1st June 2025.  Carol and Andy Sworn took part. I’d never heard of it but it sounds amazing.  See below! (Does anyone ever get lost doing it?)

The Grasmere Gallop Trail Races and OMM Lite joined together recently to form the Lake District Running Festival, a weekend of great routes, good food, a fabulous location to race and lots of like minded people gathered in one location to enjoy all things trail! Andy and I took part in the OMM Lite, this is a 2 day event where you have a set time to find as many checkpoints as you can and get back to HQ before your time runs out. Our event was 7 hours on Saturday and 5 hours on Sunday, we adopted a fairly relaxed approach to collecting points but still managed approximately 40kms and 1800m of elevation gain over the 2 days. The weather was typically ‘lake district’ ie very wet, cold and windy but we had a great time out on the hills……may even have visited a coffee shop at one point for some welcome shelter and warmth! It is a fabulous weekend with races ranging from 5K to a full marathon as well as the orienteering challenge. If anyone fancies something a bit different we can highly recommend this, next year’s event is already in our diary……29/30/31st May 2025. Maybe we can persuade a few club members to join us next year…..?

Carol Sworn

Parkruns

BEGINNER’S GRADUATION – CIRENCESTER PARKRUN 7th JUNE

RSE has been hosting a beginners running group for the past nearly 8 weeks. Everyone in that group has done amazingly well.Their achievements were celebrated at Cirencester parkrun on 7 June.  What a turn out!

Rebecca SOUTHERINGTON        22:43

Paul BILLINGHURST                    22:58

Phil NEWMAN                                 23:43

Darren JENNER                              24:35

Robert BAKER                                 25:41

Alison BOOTH                                 26:13

Claire SHARP                                   26:14

Katy MILLER                                    27:12

Andy SWORN                                  27:13

Rachel SMITH                                 28:24

Mark GARRETT                              28:54

Elaine CHAPMAN                           29:40

Felicity CROTTY                              29:53

Samantha WARD                            30:04

Maria YATES                                    30:22

Anne-Marie DAVIES                      30:28

Vicki MASON                                   30:37

Paul ROBERTSON                          30:57

Rachel WEAVER                             33:20

Carol SWORN                                 40:07

Cathy STEER                                   40:13

Abigail BALL                                    40:34

Sylvia WARMAN                             40:34

Amanda BALL                                  40:36

Jessica JAMES                                 45:33

There were lots of photos. Here are a few smiling faces

If you ran and your name isn’t on the list above, it’s probably because you need to put the club’s name in your profile on the parkrun site

Nadine’s fundraiser for Cruse Bereavement Support

Cotswold Way Ultra Challenge 2025 · 21 June 2025 to 22 June 2025

Here’s the link if anyone would like to sponsor Nadine :

https://www.justgiving.com/page/nadine-brown-cotswold-way?utm_medium=FR&utm_source=CL&utm_campaign=015