Grantham Running Club take part in the Turkey Trot Half Marathon at Keyworth
The Turkey Trot Half Marathon is the traditional end point of Grantham Running Club's racing year and this year nine of the more 'seasoned' members toed the start line of this pre-Christmas tester.
In an era of professional race organising companies, the Keyworth event has a long and illustrious history of being well organised by volunteers and raising some well needed funds for the local Scout Group.
The course is a challenging one lap road race starting and finishing at the secondary school and taking in various local villages with some tough uphill sections.
Conditions made it very much a race of two halves, with the promised rain coming down from about the hour mark which made for an interesting finish.
Andrew Pask was the first green vest across the line with a respectable 1:30:55, about one minute faster than where he thought is fitness was.
Next was the determined Peter Bonner who always supports this race.
Unwell at the start line, Peter wasn’t about to set any records but got around with his health intact with a time of 1:34:13.
First GRC lady and finishing fifth in the F50 age category was Catherine Payne with 1:40:54 and hitting a bumper 80.9 percent, the highest GP score of the day.
Next was the ever-consistent Robert McArdle who clocked 1:47:20 and scored a county standard 70.84 percent.
Closely following was Peter Jennings with 1:48:14 in his second fastest time over the distance this year.
Martin Rodell set a season’s best time of 1:50:21, beating his Worksop Half time by 1min 23secs.
Sarah High finished second in her F60 age category with a solid time of 1:55:44 and claimed a score of 74.56 percent, the second highest of the day.
Sarah was very closely followed by Tommy Napier who ran the only personal best of the day, albeit only a very small one.
Tommy’s time of 1:56:04 beats his effort from the Retford Half in 2022 by just two seconds but he will enjoy his Christmas knowing he's still got good races in him.
