IN a welcome departure from the hot and humid weather of the past couple of years, Cirencester Athletic Club runners competed in the Fairford 10k in near ideal conditions on Sunday, June 5.

This helped compensate for a deceptively tough and undulating course in what was the fifth event in the club's road race championships series.

Despite the absence of lead runners, Cirencester ladies' team of Wendy Jones and Jane Wassell did the club proud by taking the team championship.

The team comprised Kveta Kroulikova, Kim Ingleby and Sue McKeeman, and the ladies also came fourth with a team of Carol Clarke, Corinne Clark and Sue Brown.

Jane Wassell was running with her son Cameron in the 3k fun run, and he clearly shares his mum's genes with a great race to win the U8s prize.

Strong performances from the lead Cirencester men saw Chris Illman just outside the top ten in a time of 35min 38sec. Pancho Gonzalez Diaz in 15th place and Paul Barlow 35th gave the men third place in the team competition behind winners Bourton and Cheltenham.

Jon Young and Neil Dunnage also turned in fine performances on a course which does not favour fast times.

Cirencester AC positions in Fairford 10k, which was won by Dan Duke (Cheltenham Harrier) in a record-breaking time of 32min 16sec, are as follows:

11 Chris Illman 35.38, 15 Pancho Gonzalez Diaz 36.36, 35 Paul Barlow 38.26, 78 Bill Leggate 41.22, 89 Jon Young 41.52, 102 Neil Dunnage 42.15, 129 Terry Ranger 43.30, 152 Kveta Kroulikova 44.57, 163 Kim Ingleby 45.46, 167 Dorian Matts 45.52, 178 Richard Waldron 46.19. 200 Sue McKeeman 47.04, 205 Carol Clarke 47.19, 231 Corinne Clark 48.34, 246 Sue Brown 49.23, 324 Fred Robson 53.32, 345 Ken McAnespie 54.39. A total of 496 runners finished.