Littledown 5

The course was fairly pleasant - but a little narrow at the beginning for a fairly large field: suburban pavements and tarmac paths through parks. Well marshalled. Excellent weather on the day for late September. Not flat - it was one of those courses where you notice every little incline because there aren't any real hills, so it ends up feeling really tough but in a more hilly race you wouldn't notice those rises at all.

Andrew Johnson 32:27
Jim Wyatt 37:50 (3rd Vet/65 -- 1st SW Vet 65)

(AJ)

Another train...

It seems my 'train' post excited a bit of interest at a slack time for competition. So here is another of a main-line diesel at Ottery St Mary station in around 1960. Most of the station buildings are still there of course, but the line is long gone. One of my routes down to Budleigh Salterton (12 miles this way) takes in a good deal of the old line, and I always feel the 'breath' of the engines breathing down my neck!

Nostalgia ?

Especially for Ray, and for all (veteran) members of the Harriers... a photo of one of the last trains to come over the viaduct (now demolished) at the end of Exeter Road. As you can see it ran down the incline to the estuary and then on to Exmouth Station (which was a very grand affair then). The line was closed in 1967.

Message from John Perratt

Thanks for the report, Les, but you forgot to mention that you were the First South West Vet M65 in the New Forest Marathon which was the vehicle for the Club Championship. Your medal is on its way!

(JP)

Musbury, Truro & The New Forest

Three Exmouth Harriers really did the club proud at the Musbury Castle Challenge, a tough multi terrain race of just under 8 miles around the hills of East Devon with a nasty climb that starts the last quarter of the first mile. Congratulations to Exmouth’s Tony Hatchard who won the race in 49:23, beating 103 other finishers. Also to Hugh Marsden, who was 2nd V45 and 7th overall in 52:54 and Dawn Teed, who was 2nd Vet lady and 54th overall in 73:08. Tony’s fiancée Lisa James, running for Instinctive Sports, was 48th in 70:51.

Trevor Cope represented Exmouth Harriers at the Truro Half Marathon which was won by Jim Cole of Tavistock A C in 1:14:41. Trevor was 350th in 2:09:13 and 469 runners completed the race.

Exmouth’s Steph French ran well to come 545th in 1:50:08 out of the 1732 runners who finished the New Forest Half Marathon. The winner was Lee Rodriguez of Poole Runners in 1:13:31.

The New Forest Marathon was won by Keith Russell of Reading Roadrunners in 2:39:35. Les Turner finished the race in 324th place in 4:17:40. Although his time was a PB by just over 2 minutes, he didn’t run very well and almost failed to finish. 494 runners completed the race. Les ran 4:17:40... more later

(LT)

Sunday 7th September races

On 7th September, Stan and Joan Mason ran their first race since joining Exmouth Harriers, the Lichfield 10k Road Race, Staffs, on a gently undulating course with some hills between 4 and 7 km, run mainly on quiet country lanes. The winner was Thomas Payn of Winchester and District A C in 31:14 and 753 runners completed the race. Stan was 383rd in 52:58 and Joan was 478th in 55:49.

On the same day, Kevin Lingard and his daughter Lissie competed in The Dartmoor Dash, an approximately 5 mile undulating scenic course over tracks, rough moorland and occasional bogs in the very wet and muddy conditions. Neil Holmes won the race in 32:16 and there were 86 finishers, including Kevin who was 50th in 48:26 and Lissie who was 54th in 49:33.

Congratulations to Exmouth Harrier Dave Stone who continued his recent run of outstanding form by winning the Ivybridge Beacon Challenge in 52:50 and beating second placed Dave Severn of Torbay A C by nearly 2 minutes. His time was a new record for the course, 8 miles off road involving a long, uphill climb to the Beacon, then a gravely track back down to the finish. 122 runners completed the race.

(LT)

Devon 10,000 metres Championship

38 runners braved a wet and windy evening on Wednesday to compete in the Devon 10,000 metre championships at Exeter Arena. The light rain kept the runners cool, but running into a stiff breeze 25 times along the back straight of each lap was more challenging. Tom Merson of South West Road Runners won the men's championship, finishing 7 seconds ahead of John McFarlen in 31:38. Lucy Cartwright's 39:52 ensured her the women's title.

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Full results can be found at http://www.thegreatwestrun.co.uk/images/devon10k_results.xls

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Running in his first after an enforced three week break, Andy Johnson was last in the A race for around 2k... then running on his own (apart from being lapped on numerous occasions!) for the rest of the race. Aiming for kilometre splits of 4:10 and he ran:4:05, 4:08, 4:07, 4:08, 4:10, 4:10, 4:10, 4:13, 4:13 and 4:06. His finishing time of 41:35 left him 20th overall and 3rd of the 3 M45s.

(RR)

Chamonix Challenge...

A quartet of Exmouth Harriers have just returned from a highly successful encounter with Mont Blanc, where the races involved running, walking and clambering over boulders, by day and by night.

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Paul Champion completed the race which started at Chamonix (France) and passed through Courmayeur (Italy) and Champex (Switzerland) before returning to Chamonix (over 100 miles), for the second successive year. He lived up to his name by producing an even more magnificent performance than last year and confirmed that as well as being longer, this year’s courses had been made even tougher by the addition of a massive climb at the end.

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Paul found it particularly hard on the Saturday, when temperatures of 30o centigrade meant that he could hardly eat or drink anything until the temperature dropped in the evening when, fortunately, he managed to pick up several places. Despite this handicap, however, he achieved his objective by finishing 326th out of over 2,300 starters.
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Jon and Lorraine Croome, who completed the shorter but still incredibly hard route which started at Courmayeur and passed through Champex before finishing at Chamonix (over 60 miles), found it very tough and hot. They went round together in just under 25 hours and described it as a very spectacular and very rewarding experience. They really appreciated the great reception all the runners received at the finish at Chamonix.
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Sue Wilkin also undertook the Courmayeur, Champex, Chamonix (over 60 miles) route and she, too, should be very proud of her achievement. As was only to be expected, she found the adventure even tougher than her clubmates, but couldn’t believe how strongly she was able to run the hills. She, too, thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Congratulations to all four superstars, who were a real credit to their club!!

Dartmouth Regatta Road Race
On Saturday, 30th August, Hugh Marsden represented Exmouth Harriers at the 5 mile Dartmouth race, where another great performance saw him come 1st V45 and 7th overall in 31:58.

151 runners completed the race that was won by Peter Monaghan of Torbay A C in 29:37.

The Beast
The next day, Exmouth Harriers Terry Oldham and Lorraine Slight completed “The Beast”, Poole A C ‘s tough, 13-mile multi terrain event that starts and finishes at Corfe Castle, Dorset. The race was won by Mike Grist of Poole Runners in 1:24:43 and there were 486 finishers. Terry was 288th in 2:17:1 and Lorraine was 311th in 2:19:7.

(LT)

Exe 5k Series - Final Race

Last Thursday in the final race of the Exe 5k series, Jim Wyatt beat Mark Waddicor by exactly a minute (23:09 to Mark's 24:09), the result being that Jim was the overall winner of the V65 category in the series (2 wins to Mark's 1). WELL DONE JIM!

There is little doubt that weeks and weeks of work or the track have paid dividends.

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Peter McKeown, also completed the final race and came 2nd V40 in 18:42, and 2nd V40 for the series.

(RR)