Strange though it may seem the Dursley Running Club entrants for the Stroud Beer Race were all female, clearly the attraction of free beer didn’t do it for the guys. Laura Price and Mel Williams were Dursley’s two representatives taking on the other 61 Stroud beer runners over this very hilly 7.2 mile road race.

Olympic year saw three Dursley athletes on the line at the Virgin London Marathon, Neil Parry, Kevin Jackson and Avril Yearsley For the Dursley runners it was a tale of two halfs in one way or another. After a very near miss on a good for age time two years ago Kevin returned with a vengeance. Having missed out on the automatic entry by one second in 2009, Jackson smashed his last London time by almost 5 minutes, beating marathon veteran Neil in the process and guaranteeing an automatic entry in 2013. Over recent years Kevin had struggled to deliver the goods over the last few miles, this was not the case in 2012.  Both Neil and Kevin  had to contend with challenges in the run up to the event, Jackson falling victim to a virus and Parry suffering with a back injury, such set backs often create uncertainly in the runners mind. Perhaps the unlikely event of Kevin being unwell indicated how hard he was training, more running less walking?