Category Archives: Race Report

Erme Valley Relays

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Sidmouth Running Club take Bronze at prestigious Erme Valley Relays.

Sidmouth RC sent the ‘A Team’ down to Ivybridge on Friday night to take part in the Erme Valley Relays. Established in 2003, this event has become a ‘must do’ race for the region’s premier running clubs. This year a record 127 teams entered from across Devon and East Cornwall.

Based at Ivybridge Rugby Club, the 2.5 mile route takes you along Devon lanes and including two grim climbs – “short and nasty” is how we would describe the course.

Young whippet Jason Drew kicked things off for Sidmouth and it was no surprise to see him arrive back at base in the top three positions. Next off was old man of the team, Justin Ashby. Justin prefers the longer distances but he managed to keep the team in 4th place with a strong run. Mat Szala flew out of the blocks and his superb run moved the team back into 3rd place.

In the car on the way down we agreed Jason would also take the anchor leg (well, actually, Mat and Justin begged him to do so) and to his great credit he ran only marginally slower than his first leg to keep us in 3rd place ahead of Plymouth Harriers, no less.

This was Sidmouth’s best ever position in the event. The team’s combined time of 53:58 seconds was phenomenal for what is effectively a hilly 10 mile road race, and just over a minute behind 1st place Exmouth Harriers.

Full marks to Jason who put in the 3rd fastest leg of the night – out of 508. Jason is quickly becoming one of the region’s top runners. Also to Mat Szala who did the event as a warm-up for his half-ironman two days later!

Our thanks to Erme Valley Harriers for hosting another great event.

Edinburgh Marathon 2016

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Two of our elite runners showed us what they were capable of. On Saturday May 28th Justin Ashby and Tim Mitchell accompanied by support crew Claire, Justin’s wife boarded a plane in Exeter to fly up to Edinburgh to take part in the town’s marathon on Sunday and what an incredible race they both had. Along with over 7000 other runners they set off in perfect conditions in a beautiful city cheered on by thousands of spectators. You only have to look at their split times over 10K, half marathon, and 30K to see something special was happening; Justin recorded times of 38:53, 1:22:08 and I:56:40 while Tim recorded 44:42, 1:36:22 and 2:19:00. At the tape Justin came 32nd in a time of 2:44:30 a pace of 6:16 minute miles while Tim recorded 3:18:31 a pace of 7:34 minutes miles. And the icing on the cake was that Tim knocked 4 minutes off his PB while Justin bettered his by 3 minutes. As I said an incredible feat of running.

Ottery 10k 2016 Report

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Ten members were amongst the 215 who finished the Ottery 10K which we are told by the organisers is a fairly flat run on the roads and lanes around Ottery St. Mary, although Gail Goldsmith who has just moved into the area disputes the ‘fairly flat’. She will soon get used to the Devon interpretation of flat. After all the recent off-road races this was one for the road runners in the Club. James Salter who had not run this distance for years showed us the benefit of youth with a storming run, finishing in a time quicker than the 45 minutes he told me he had set his mind on before the start. The race excellently organised by Honiton Running Club starts and finishes at the Ottery Cricket Club and they had laid on plenty of refreshment at the finish to enjoy recovering in the sunshine.

Antony Hall was the first Club runner home in 21st place in a time of 0:39:33, James Salter 0:44:38,

Gordon Bryant 0:46:50, Rob Edwards 0:47:27, Simon Hollyer 0:51:18, Graham Sheppard 0:52:19,

Terry Bewes 0:55:47, John Doherty 0:56:53, Emma Compton 0:57:13, Gail Goldsmith 1:02:09.