Kymin Winter Race
Eleven members of Forest of Dean AC took part in the Kymin Winter Race on Saturday the 7th of January. The Kymin Winter Race is organised by Les Croupiers, a running club based in Cardiff but the race takes place in Monmouth and, as the name would suggest, involves running up and down the Kymin one of the hills overlooking Monmouth. In fact runners have to climb almost to the top of the Kymin from Monmouth, a 200m (650 ft) ascent, before decending back down towards Redbrook and then climbing again a further 160m (525 ft) to the Naval Temple at the summit. The race is then completed by descending as fast as possible across fields, woodland tracks and along muddy footpaths usually at high speed, to arrive back at the start in Monmouth.
The event winner was Paul Murrin of Chepstow Harriers in 31:22 while the first FODAC runner back and in 2nd place overall was John Hamilton a mere 6s behind in 31:28. Second and third FODAC men were Julian Boon in 35:37 and Richard Powles in 37:57, while the first three FODAC women were Gemma Hewitt in 49:06 followed by Stefanie Frances and Jo Edwards who both finished in 49:47. Other FODAC finishers were Andrew Thorpe 39:55, Patrick Rennison 41:36, Jim Storrar 42:24, Michael Marks 42:30, Chris Hawkins 51:13, Peter Covington Jones 53:22, Vanessa Pegler 58:40 and Karen Barnett 58:42.
