Seventh Heaven For Natalie

An awesome foursome had to dig deep in the South Downs at the weekend. As Natalie Cusack, Joe Hornsby, Gavin Forbes and Neil Pallant took on the UK 100k Ultra event on Sunday.

Natalie came home in 12:33:01 to finish an excellent 32^nd overall and 7^th female. Joe clocked 12:34:08 to be 35^th overall. Neil and and Gavin finished together in 98^th and 99^th respectively in 16:03:16. There were 111 finishers in total.

Meanwhile at the opposite end of the UK, soon to be married Debbie Proctor and Ben Elphick had a Scottish engagement with the Edinburgh Marathon Festival. They were joined by fellow Trotters Jemma Bennet and Peter Kirby on what turned out to be an unusually sunny day in Scotland’s capital.

Ben scorched to a personal best over the half marathon distance, logging 1:37:23 to dip under his previous best by 15 seconds. Over the marathon distance, Debbie also narrowly bettered a target time. Despite a race that didn’t go fully to plan. “The sun came out and boiled us all,” she reported and “(I) hit the biggest wall I have ever hit. Had to plod to survive.” She still conjured a sprint finish to get under the four-hour mark, crossing the line in 3:59:58. Jemma came home in 4:21:13, whilst Peter finished in 4:46:03.

Flying solo Ruth Johnson banked another off-road epic, this time the Hellstone Half Marathon in Dorset. Overcoming hill and vale on the trail, she clocked 2:50:20 (Garmin timed, official results not available at time of writing).