Club 'marathoners' prepare for London (From Penarth Times)

Club 'marathoners' prepare for London

A RECORD number of Penarth and Dinas Runners are taking part in this year's Flora London Marathon.

For several months, Knill Baird Murray, Diane Hains, Sharon Heard, Anna Helsing, Neil Hendry, Jo Heuze, Andrew Palmer, Teca Phillips and Ian Spilsbury have been clocking up the miles in preparation for the 26.2 mile race on Sunday, April 14.

As well as attending the usual Monday night club sessions, the runners have been completing distance runs of up to 22 miles, and undertaking speed sessions at Leckwith Stadium and gruelling hill climbs at Penarth sea front.

Many of the runners have benefited from the training schedules prepared by coach Janice Clement who, despite disappearing to Australia for six weeks, followed their progress via e-mail!

Several charities will be benefiting from monies raised by the dedication and hard work of the participants, including Age Concern, PHAB and Imperial Cancer Research. Everyone at Penarth and Dinas Runners would like to wish their colleagues good luck for the race (see photo on back page).

The third Penarth and Dinas Runners Club Championship race took place on Sunday, March 3. Nine club runners completed the eight mile multi-terrain course which started and finished at Western Leisure Centre in Caerau.

Much of the route was through the lanes of Wenvoe but also included a particularly steep, rocky hill climb through farmland. The weather was surprisingly warm and dry which, added to the undulating nature of the course, made conditions quite hard-going at times. Despite this, some of the runners turned in better times than January's flat Lliswerry eight mile race.

Those who completed the course were: Rob Wilcox, Neil Hendry, Peter Cottnam, Andrew Palmer, Julie Wassell, Debbie Williams, Lisa Cleary, Simon Hudd and Joanna Dutch.