Dumfries Running Club

Nov 20 2009 Dumfries Standard Friday

ON A DAY of storms over the UK, Paul Hart and Les Hill travelled down to Yorkshire undeterred to take part in the Burley Bridge 21-mile trail race near Ilkley.

This was the fourth consecutive year Paul and Les have taken part in this race and having been placed second last year, Paul was delighted to finish in first place this year in a time of 2hr 53mins.

With a new finishing section that has some tricky navigation Paul was relieved that a training run on the route two months ago meant he got this section right.

Les ran steadily from the start and finished strongly in 3hr 25mins for 21st place, having lost five minutes on the last section when missing a turning onto the new route.

The weather on the day was better than expected but underfoot conditions on the moors made for very tough running through streams of water and mud in places.

Also making an excellent return to competitive running was Bill Watson who was very pleased to finish in 3hr 5mins considering his time out of running through injury earlier this year.

Although Vicky Hart had also entered the Burley Bridge race, she chose instead to rest on Saturday and save her energy for the Preston 10-mile race on Sunday.

A top quality field turned out for the race where which consisted of two loops of five miles.

In dry and cool conditions Vicky ran a well paced race and smashed her previous PB set in August by four mins 30secs to finish 20th lady in 75mins 8secs.

Vicky has now achieved the tremendous feat of running three PBs at three different distances in three weekends and is looking forward to a more relaxed time at the Brampton to Carlisle race this Saturday where a large turnout of fellow DRC members is expected.