Cheesy Smiles All Round for Sidmouth Runners

A sunny day on 8^th October was the setting for the Muddiford Cheese Run, a scenic 5 mile run from Burlescombe Village along the Grand Western Canal to Muddifords Court Country House near Cullompton.  Sidmouth Running Club were once again out in force participating in an event that was raising funds for the Exeter Dementia Action Alliance and was supported by Wyke Farms and other local business.

Sidmouth, busy socialising before the start, found themselves as a group at the back of the pack and initially found it difficult to make headway along the narrow canal tow path. The group spread out as they dodged past other runners and sped up as they all enjoyed the absence of hills.

Caroline Ball, representing Sidmouth said ‘It is the first ever Muddiford Cheese Race and was really well supported by walkers and runners. We all enjoyed it, as it was unusually flat for us’.

Nine runners in all completed the run for Sidmouth, led in by Jane Hemsworth and Jo Earlam in 43 minutes, followed by David Millen, Christine Farnham, Karen Farnham, Caroline Ball and Sue Cunningham. The Club’s youngest wearer of the `Mighty Green’ turned in a magnificent performance. Mollie Phillips aged just 5, supported by mum Laura, completed her first ever event covering the course in an amazing time of 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Runners were rewarded with live music and cheese toasties in the sunshine, and were very pleased with the well organised run and family entertainments.

Top placings for Sidmouth Runners at Devon Events

Sidmouth Runners were out testing themselves over a number of distances in two events last weekend.

In Barnstaple a flat fast course for the annual marathon gave Theo Burgess a chance to push himself and see what he could do. With good weather conditions and a redesigned course to ensure more supporter presence Theo achieved a personal best completing in 3:15:30, 17th overall and 5 minutes faster than his previous PB.

Closer to home a contingent from SRC set out to test the new trail runs at Killerton House near Exeter. Whilst the historic grounds at Killerton are already an established location for running events the was the first time the new 10km and half marathon multi terrain courses had been used and the runners found it challenging.

‘The Killerton 10K certainly lived up to its name, it was a hard run’ said runner Jenny Bentley, ‘The course started with an uphill gradual climb which continued into a steep climb to the top of the hill, and then the course became interesting as it winded through the woods. The best part was hearing Kerry and Anthony call my name as I ran the final straight up to the finish line.’ Also running the 10k were new member Sam Ingram and Kerry Boyle, who despite finding the race ‘hot and hilly’ delivered a fantastic 1st in age group result in just under the hour.

Four seasoned campaigners from SRC tackled the half marathon distance. Club chairman, Terry Bewes, commented, ’Runners enter these events for different reasons. Sarah Watkins wanted to test her continuing recovery, whilst I wanted to see if I was capable of that distance in preparation for the upcoming long autumn club runs and events’. Terry ruefully pondered, ‘Sarah was puffing and panting her way around the first half of the course with me for company, but then found her mojo and left me behind in the second, as usual’. Antony Hall and Rob Edwards both had excellent runs, achieving top three in age group positions.

The club were particularly proud of 8 year old Seth Lancaster who ran his first race in SRC colours, the 1K, taking it steady and beating his Dad (Phil Lancaster) in a sprint finish. Congratulations Seth!

Results Killerton:
1K Seth Lancaster 10th in 6:44
10K Kerry Boyle 1st in age group in 59:47:08 and 41st overall.
Sam Ingram 1:05:12.
Jennifer Bentley 1:20:41
Half Marathon.
Antony Hall 2nd in age group in 1:46:55
Rob Edwards 3rd in age group in 2:23:16
Sarah Watkins 4th in age group 2:41:46
Terry Bewes 2:52:33.
There were 445 finishers in the 10K and 195 in the half marathon. A great result for the Club

Sidmouth runners have been out participating in a range of shorter, but nonetheless challenging events recently. 6 members of the Sidmouth Running Club took part in the Sidbury fun run on 10^th September. Part of the Sidbury Fair week the course offered a 5.8k run for adults and 2.4k for children followed by a hog roast and prizes. Located in the parkland of Sidbury manor the first half of the course was steep and uphill and more ‘run’ than ‘fun’ according to Nigel Maeer, who completed the run in around 30 minutes. Paula Farrand ran a cracking race, and won the prize for the first lady. Paula’s daughter Amelie demonstrated her skills on the junior course and other club members including Tim Swarbrick, Bert Dykema and Bill Valentine all showed the Mighty Green in action on local tracks.

Away from the valley, two SRC runners also competed in 5k races. Ellie Keast was 3^rd lady home in her local Park Run and in Exeter Lara Millmow joined over 1,100 runners for the 18th Michelmores 5k Charity Run on 7 September. The aim of this annual event is to support Michelmores’ Charity of the Year which this year is Balloons, a local charity that supports bereaved children and their families in Exeter and the surrounding area.

Lara at the Michelmores 5k

The runners were ‘treated’ to a warm-up by a Royal Marines Physical Training Instructor at the Race Village on Cathedral Green before setting off in waves based on expected finish times, to ensure that every runner could complete the run at the perfect individual pace. Spirits were up even the rain was coming down, which luckily stopped just before the first wave set off, helping to cool the runners. The run ended on a high note with cheers, sunshine and prizes at the finish line.

This was the second 5k for Lara Millmow of Sidmouth Running Club, who only started running in January. “My aim for the 5k was to help raise funds for this worthy cause and also to complete the run without stopping, which I achieved. I’m proud of my result and couldn’t have done it without the encouragement and support of the club.”

City to Sea Marathon

Following a scorching bank holiday, two Sidmouth runners braved driving rain, headwinds and slippery paths for the challenging City to Sea Marathon the following weekend. The 26.6 mile run from Exeter Riverside to Babbacombe Downs in Torquay covers riverside paths, country lanes, woodlands, stunning cliff tops beaches and harbours, saving its worst climbs for the last 6miles.

The first half, from Exeter to Dawlish Warren is entirely flat, easy going along the estuary cycle path, but after Shaldon, the route becomes a roller-coaster – the hills a series of switch-backs, no sooner up than plunging down again. Sidmouth runners Jo Earlam and Jim Forrer represent the full range of experience – for Jo this was her 54th marathon, and it was Jim’s first.

Jo, who completed the race last year said ‘In one mile I counted six huge climbs and drops. Because I knew what awaited en route to Babbacombe I was mentally prepared, ticking each one off with a steely determination. Each time I saw someone up ahead I tried to push on to catch up with them, that way I passed several people, and no one passed me. I slowed down, to around 17 minute miling, but that was a lot better than last year, when these six miles took me over 2 hours’.

Jim ran a different race admitting that he hadn’t initially realised quite how pointy the elevation graph was towards the end. Having taken advice he set his target time at 5 hours, and put in the training over the summer, fitting around family holidays.

Of his first marathon he said ‘Of course I set out far too fast, happening to be in a group near the front. I figured a positive split on this course was inevitable though and embraced it. After doing a 54min 10km at threshold heart rate I soon found myself going slower and slower until the number of people passing me made it feel like I was going backwards; this was a distinct low point’.

However, runners were well looked after in the event and Jim soon rallied, enjoying the flapjacks and coffee at the 20km checkpoint and the coke, potato wedges and chocolate at 32km.

‘The long coastal wall stretches felt a little treacherous but provided an epic atmosphere watching the crashing waves and the cloud-covered hills to come’ said Jim. ‘The deluge was face-stinging for the final 10k but I had run it in training and knew what was coming.  Despite being tired and wobbly a bit of runner’s high kicked in and I started taking back some of the placings I’d lost earlier. By this point though the five hour mark was out of reach although I didn’t mind at all’.

Both runners enjoyed the rewards at the finish (including Fish and chips for Jim!) and paid tribute to the beautiful route and dedicated marshalls.

Very pleasing results for both runners saw Jim complete in 5 hours 7 minutes and 26th place out of 247, with Jo completing in under 5 hours 30 minutes and 42nd position, an improvement of nearly 40 places on last year.

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.

Member: personalloandial.com

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.

The Otter Rail and River Run

Eighteen SIDMOUTH Running Club members turned out to support the 11^th year of the Otter Rail and River Run. Race organiser Jo Earlam and the Tipton Playing Field Association pulled out all the stops to put on an extremely enjoyable event.

The race starts in the playing field before crossing the road and then following the path beside the river heading towards Newton Poppleford. It then crosses the river to Harpford and into Harpford woods to the old railway bridge. At this point you climb the steps and follow the old railway track back to Tipton then onto Sargent Mill over the bridge and head off towards Fluxton, along a lane heading back towards Tipton, across a field and bridge to enter the top of the playing field and sprint to the finish. It is an undulating off-road run with plenty of challenges to overcome.

David and Sue

The club members excelled themselves this year with nine prize winners.F45 1^st Naomi Garrick, M70 1^st David Millen, F55 1^st Christine Farnham, F65 2^nd Gail Goldsmith, M60 2^nd Jon Ball, 3^rd Tim Swarbrick, M65 3^rd John Sharples, M50 3^rd Graham Hill, Senior men 3^rd Theo Burgess.

10k results. Graham Hill 9^th overall 41:22, Theo Burgess 11^th overall 42:11, Naomi Garrick 53:15, Christine Farnham 55:57, Karen Farnham 56:38, Jon Ball 56:43, Tim Swarbrick 56:57, David Millen 58:11, John Sharples 59:03, Dave Wright 1:02:00, Debbie Marriott 1:02:26, Don Cawthera 1:02:27, Gail Goldsmith 1:04:14, Milly Frankpitt 1:05:49, Richard Hedger 1:06:25, Tony Velterop 1:06:43, Jenny Bentley 1:08:25, Sue Cunningham 1:18:34.

There were 184 finishers

The Woodland Relays

It was hard to believe that two consecutive Wednesday evening running on Woodbury Common could be so extremely different weather wise. The first from Woodbury Castle was a Sidmouth club run on the hottest day of the year and the second on East Budleigh Common was the Woodland Relays in what can only be described as monsoon conditions.

The Woodland Relays are a series of races between East Devon clubs with each taking it in turn to organise a venue of their choice. This was the 23^rd race extremely well organised by Exmouth Harriers in the Wheathill Plantation over a proper cross country course in horrendous conditions.

Between them the N1 Tri Club, Sidmouth, Axe Valley, Honiton, Exmouth, the Met Office and Clyst Hydon entered 21 senior teams and 10 junior. Teams of three are divided into all male, all female, mixed and juniors with each member running the same 4k circuit. With the rain lashing down the whole time, running fast became more difficult for those running the second and third legs as the course rapidly became a quagmire.

Sidmouth Running club had five teams entered, two experienced and three first timers all with the exception of Deb Marriott joining the club in January.

The Sidmouth Green Army comprising Justin Ashby 16:24, Antony Hall 17:30 and Ben Chesters 16:42 did an excellent job finishing second overall just being pipped by the young bucks from N1 Tri.

The Sidmouth Ladies no. 1 team Kerry Boyle 20:29, Charlotte Forrer 21:18 and Els Laurays were the third ladies team to finish.

The ladies V45 team Karen Farnham 24:14, Deb Marriott 24:07 and Christine Farnham 24:51, the mixed team Christie Ward 30:06, Paul Wright 24:35 and John Sharples 24:47 and the ladies no. 2 team Jenni Yeoman 29:53, Laura Philips 27:20 and Julia Haddrell 32:42 all had their first experience of what life is like for a hippopotamus – wet and muddy.

However they all enjoyed the evening, supported each other, said it was one they would never forget and the Mighty Green was worn and the Club shown supporting another event. Well done to you all.