Andy H reports..
To coincide with the Annual Gloucester Festival, Severn AC stage the Festival 7. The race used to be staged in a more central location in Gloucester but over the last few years it now starts at the Pilot Inn at Hardwicke and the route follows the country lanes around Longney and Elmore. The course is very undulating so fast times are difficult to achieve. On Thursday evening, 5 Tewkesbury Athletes tackled this tough course and also had to cope with very warm weather.
First home was yours truly in 41:22, this gave me a position of 4th (3rd Senior Man). Yes I was beaten by a lady (only just though), but a very good athlete in Jo Brewer of Cheltenham Harriers who broke the ladies course record by over 90 seconds. Not the greatest time in the world but a good hard workout and reasonable bearing in mind that I only decided to run it just over an hour before the start. Next home was Stu Buchan who came home in 20th in a time of 49:07. This was his first race back from a long lay off, well done. Stu Dudfield was next in 49:36 (22nd) followed by Barry O'Driscoll in 50:17 (23rd) and finally Cathy Dudfield in 53:32 (29th, but 3rd lady). Both Cathy and myself picked up prizes of various chocolate biscuits. Overall it was good that a reasonable turnout was achieved and compete in a race that has a good history in the Gloucestershire road racing calendar.
There were 35 runners with a winning time of 37:07.