Jurassic 10k and Lustleigh 10k

Six members of Sidmouth Running Club braved the scorching Bank Holiday weekend sun to compete in a couple of tough off road events. On Saturday Polly Walton and Tim Swarbrick had great runs in the 10th Jurassic Coast 10k, both finishing inside the hour despite the heat and a hilly course.

Starting at Budleigh the course follows the coastal path to Ladram, then along the River Otter and ending up back at the start with a dip in the Big Blue for Polly after she finished. Polly and Tim did not know each other as Tim has only recently joined the club and Polly has been recovering from injury. To confuse things even more, competitors were asked to wear the charity’s red vest so it was a mighty coincidence that they finished within one second of each other. Polly 56:59 and Tim 57:00.
There were 290 finishers.

Further inland at the Lustleigh Show 10k race on Monday the Mighty Green team made another appearance. The challenging multi terrain course took runners along hilly lanes, muddy tracks, beautiful woodland and across the river Bovey (where one competitor was spotted submerged to escape the heat) before spitting them out into the village show field and the cheers of the supporters. The Lustleigh Show is the quintessential English village show with competitions ranging from ‘the best three carrots’, to hay bale throwing, to ‘the dog with the waggiest tail’ all accompanied by a jazz band and copious quantities of local food and drink.

The Sidmouth contingent were in preseason training and put in good times to achieve 4th Lady (Ellie Keast), 5th Ladies team (Ellie Keast, Cathy Keast and Monica Read) and good maintenance times from Dave Wright and Chris Robinson who was completing the race for the 13th year in a row an. Big Jim Pyne and son Sam were last seen at the front of the field cheered on by Sidmouth supporters who whilst not fit to run managed to cycle up to the moorland village to cheer the runners in.

SIDMOUTH RUNNING CLUB

It has been a very diverse week for the Mighty Green runners from SIDMOUTH running Club with an outstanding half marathon time with a personal best to charity runs, obstacle runs and getting covered in paint.

The outstanding runner of the week would have to be Theo Burgess who has only recently come back running with the club following a bout of injury problems. Theo travelled up to London to enter the RunThrough Richmond Park half marathon. Gathering at the start, amongst the other runners he met Lorraine McNulty a former club member who now lives away.

This was the first time that the RunThrough organisation had organised a race in the incredible Richmond Park in 2017 and it was a sell-out. Theo said “It was very interesting running through a park with herds of deer instead of fields of sheep and cows as I do around Sidmouth”. It is a four lap race on the paths around the park and comes with chip timing on each lap so you can track how well you paced yourself. Theo’s lap times were remarkable 22:05, 22:06, 22:58, and 21:51 giving him 7^th place overall out of 385 finishers and 3^rd in his age group. And the icing on the cake was knocking 5 seconds off his personal best time to finish in 1:28:59. Theo you did the club proud.

It is now seven months since American mother and daughter Lara and Yasmin Millmow took up running and joined the club. Now they set off to Exeter to complete their first 5k and for such a good cause: to raise money for cancer research. It may have been overcast, but the hundreds of pink shirts shone brightly during the Race for Life at Westpoint. The course was a mixture of grass and tarmac and everyone went at their own pace, whether running, jogging or walking.

They mostly ran with a few periods of walking to experience the atmosphere ultimately finishing in 34:29. In American speak “not too shabby for a Sunday morning, considering” Pink was definitely the colour of the day, as by the end of the race Lara’s face was the same colour as her shirt. Having now set a baseline time, they are looking forward to signing up for their next 5k in the autumn, this time in their Mighty Green. Final word from Lara” It felt good completing the course, and doing our bit to help beat cancer”. Well done ladies good job!

On the not so serious side Bethany Wells and her friend Katy Lanson headed off to Exeter Racecourse for the ‘Colour Obstacle Rush’ this is marketed as ‘the most fun running event ever’. It is a unique event combining the fun of the colour powered runs with the thrill of an obstacle course and the atmosphere of a music festival. Although this is a 5k ‘running event’ you don’t have to run if you don’t feel like it. In fact usually there are as many people walking or dancing through the course as running. There are 20 obstacles, 8 colour stations, 20 music zones and a chill-out area after the finish with loads of ice cream to eat as you recover. Covered from head to toe in paint Beth said “this was the most fun running event ever”.

And now back to the serious stuff, Rob Edwards and Adrian Clode headed to Exeter for a flat 10k. This is one of the City Runs and takes place along the river. Starting from the quay, it is a 2 lap, traffic free, pancake flat run on the footpaths and cycle tracks around the river Exe and Exeter Canal. Adrian finished in 47:13 and Rob in 49:06 which gave him a 2^nd place in the 65+ category. There were 378 finishers.

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The Blackdown Beauty

Ten members of Sidmouth Running Club headed off to the Blackdown Hills to run the Blackdown Beauty. This is the sister run of the Blackdown Beast which is run over a different course in January when runners battle wet lanes, boggy fields and indeed a bog. Runners could be forgiven for thinking they had entered the wrong race as there was plenty of all of this despite the recent dry weather. Massive size pigs, horses, sheep, cows and a bull were all encountered along the way just to keep it interesting

The run itself is billed as a social run as there are no numbers and no times, only the challenge of completing this 18/19 mile self-navigation course. With the current excellent growing conditions the nettles were chest height, the undergrowth so thick and the corn so high that at times we lost sight of our shortest runner Abbi.

The start is at Priors Park Farm, Culmhead and the seasoned ‘Beast Runners’ Helen Palmer, Abbi Lee, Terry Bewes, Jo Earlam, Jane Hemsworth, and David Wright were joined by new ‘Beauties’ Danny Painter, Sue Collman and Charlotte and Jim Forrer.

This is a lovely run through the beautiful Blackdown Hills taking in a mixture of lanes, trails, fields, bogs, woods, climbing over a variety of crooked styles of which there were plenty and road, not forgetting the three pub stops on the way round this year as the Merry Harriers had burnt down earlier in the year and was replaced by a water stop.

There is another reason that runners return year on year and that is for the legendary cream tea laid on by the ladies of the Smeatharpe WI at Peartree Cottage, Stapley. There were huge scones, mountains of clotted cream and lots of jams plus endless pots of tea and a beautiful garden in which to enjoy it, the only snag is that there is still six miles to run afterwards.

9 Scones and cream

For Helen Palmer this was the last of the six long runs she had set herself to complete this year. The Four Trigs 17 miles, The Grizzly 20 miles, Exe to Axe 22 miles, Blackdown Beast 17 miles, Women Can Marathon 26 miles and now the Beauty 18 miles. Congratulations Helen, what next?

Danny Painter experienced a social run for the first time. Normally Danny can be seen disappearing over the horizon on a ultra-marathon at pace but owing to a hamstring injury he wanted to test his recovery with a long easy paced run so this was just the ticket for him and his map reading skills were a bonus for us as we did not get lost this time.

10 Danny and the scones

This was Jim’s first run with the club having been persuaded to join by wife Charlotte and their first social run. Competitive athletes find it hard to run socially and so it was with these two as by the time the rest of us got to the bottom of the first field they were gone, although it may have been down to some naughty person telling them that there were only enough cream teas for the first hundred runners!! They also found out that on this type of run it does not pay to be at the front battling through the shoulder high stinging nettles as they found out by the state of their legs at the finish, much better to be

2 Charlie and Jim

further back and let others flatten them for you.

Then there was our youngest team member Abbi. My preparation for the race was to hydrate on water the day before, pasta for dinner, bed at 10pm and porridge for breakfast. Abbi, burgers on the BBQ, washed down with numerous pints of cider, followed by stargazing in the Byes on the way home and bed at 2am. In the car in the morning complete with hangover she did not look well. 18 miles later she is as bright as a button and I am looking like she did at the start. It is always a pleasure to run with Abbi as the photos show her smile gets bigger and bigger the further we run and she does all this with very little distance training.

At the finish you are normally encouraged up the last field to the sound of Chariots of Fire blasted out by DJ Howard Bidmead chair of Honiton Running Club who organised this excellent event but this year he had taken a holiday. To make sure you do not go home hungry they even have a BBQ set up in a barn with plenty of food and drink on offer, hay bales on which to relax and enjoy it and all in the name of charity, this year raising over £1000 for Macmillan.

Exeter Inflatable 5k

Last Sunday Suzi Rockey put on her Sidmouth Running Club Mighty Green shirt and headed off to Westpoint to take on the ultimate 5k challenge. This consists of a 5k course around Westpoint which is packed with some of the largest and most extreme Inflatab 10 gigantic inflatable obstacles. The participants are set off in groups with the intention of getting around the course and overcoming their various fears on the way.