At the weekend, 6 members of Newport & District Running Club braved the wind and rain brought by Storm Franklin to take on the Rugley 10-miler, a tough, hilly road race in Rugeley, Staffordshire.
Starting in the south of the town, the route takes runner south-east out of the town, through villages such as Upper Longdon and Longdon Green, before looping back to a “pinch point” in Upper Longdon where they briefly pass a point they ran past before, and then complete a second loop around Stile Cop before returning to the town to finish.
There are a number of hills on the route, and the total amount of climbing totals almost 300 metres.
In 93rd position overall, in a field of 268 runners, Aaron Nicholas was the first Novaportan runner to finish, breaking the timing beam at 1 hour, 20 minute 41 seconds.
Ralph Humphries was next for the club, 204th overall with a time of 1:42:19. Newport’s first lady back was Louise Patterson, who clocked 1:54:39 in 241st position, and she was closely followed by Sally Morgan, who was 243rd in 1:55:42.
Just behind Sally was Louise Heath, 246th in a time of 1:56:26, and Toni Ireland took second in her age category with a time of 2:00:19 to finish 249th.
