FOUR Chard Road Runners made the trip to Pensilva near Liskeard for the Cornish Marathon, one of the hardest road marathons in England.

The recent rain meant that part of the course was flooded which led to a reroute to include even more hills.

Heading off from the starting line with experience of the route were Paul Masters, Bernard Genge and Helen Baxter, who knew what to expect, but it was Simon Hall's first time.

Baxter set off quicker than she had intended and was soon overtaken by Genge and Masters while Hall, suffering from a cough, took a little longer to catch up at the top of one of the longer hills by which time the sun shine had been replaced with high winds and ever increasing rainfall.

As the race continued its climb up onto Bodmin Moor, Genge overtook Masters before Baxter overtook Hall on a downhill section.

The route had a turning point to head runners back to Pensilver at 14 miles which gave a fantastic opportunity to encourage each other going in the other direction.

Heading into Pensilver, Genge crossed the line first for Chard Road Runners in a time of 3h 57m 20.

Next for CRRs was Masters, having had a re-occurrence of a knee injury, crossing in 4h 19m 15s.

Baxter Helen was next in 4h 50m 12s and, with a final push, Hall crossed in 5h 09m 21s.