Category Archives: Event
Two marathons in two days
Debbie, Don, Kate, Suzi at the Beer Blazer
Four Sidmouth Running Club members took on the Beer Blazer this year. Doing the new 10 mile route were Don Cawthera who took 1st Sidmouth runner, 88th over all in 1h58m35s. Deb Marriott in 92nd place in 2h02m41s and Jon Russell taking 103rd in 2h09m36s. Opting for the 5k route were Kate Marriott 10th place in 24m19s and Suzi Rockey who came in 28th position with a time of 31m39s.
Kirsteen Welch Joint 1st at Marlborough Downs Challenge
David Skinner at Killerton Parkrun and Two Tunnels 5k in Bath
David Skinner took part in the Killerton Parkrun on Saturday, and the Two Tunnels 5k in Bath on Sunday.
The East Devon Round Ultramarathon
On Saturday the 4th of May, five SRC members took on a 100km Ultramarathon, the East Devon Round. This is a very tough race taking the runners through many beauty spots and two AONB’s, it has over 8,700 feet of elevation gain. The runners set off from Offwell, head through Honiton and up into the hills towards Beacon, Luppitt and Dunkerswell. Then there are a few miles of woodland paths and then some ridge running up onto East Hill giving great views across the Otter Valley. They then headed down to Sidbury, Colyton and Seaton for a Jurassic Coastline run to Lyme Regis. From Lyme it was an uphill slog to Raymonds Hill and Axminster and then a very hilly zig-zag run back to Offwell.
Jess Watkins and David Wright both completed the half ultra EDR. Jess treated this event as a training season for her next ultra and managed to be the 2nd lady across the line in 5h26m only missing first place by 12 minutes. David, however did not feel in shape to do this epic race, but decided to give it a go. He took it at his own pace by walking the hilly parts and taking full advantage of the refreshments at the check points. He also stumbled upon an ice cream van and re-kindled his love of ice-pops helping him to a cool finishing time of 9h33m. Carine Silver continued on to check point 7. Jim Forrer and Ross Walton egged each other on for the full route taking joint 14th position in 15h37m.
London Marathon 2019
London Marathon 2019.
There were two current members and one ex member of SRC taking part in the 2019 London Marathon. Justin Ashby and Emma Cudd and (ex member) Hollie Robson.
Hollie who used to be a member of SRC, has on many occasions watched her Mum Becky run in the London Marathon. This year however, it was Hollies turn to give it a go. This was her first time and she ran a very consistent race, gaining a very respectable 4h00m26s time. Also a first London Marathon for Emma Cudd, who had a good race and kept up a steady 9.41 minute mile completing the route in 4h21m.
Justin Ashby achieved the 2h45m qualifying time from his last London marathon in 2017. This earned him a Championship place for this year. It gave him the privilege of assembling in a pen with it’s own marquee and loos with a warm-up area adjacent to the elites’ zone. So. with just a barrier separating him from Mo Farrah et al, it gave him inspiration to race hard.
A few minutes before the start time, Justin’s group were ushered forward to just a few rows back from the elite runners. With noise levels rising in anticipation, many runners started ditching their last layers of clothes and were stripping down to their vests. As the seconds counted down, Justin had a huge adrenalin surge and then he was off. A point worth noting, the last runners of the London Marathon crossed the start line up to 1 hour after the elite race starts. In Justin’s case, he was over the start line a mere 10 seconds after the elites got going!
Justin’s last three marathons have been based on the tactic of holding back on the outward half and running the 2nd half slightly quicker. This is one recommended way to do it. However, this time he thought he would push things on a bit for the first 15 miles, then try to hang on. And boy, did he hang on. He did not let up and managed to sustain a 2 minute 30 second (ish) gap behind Mo Farrah. It’s amazing how quickly the human body and mind can evolve in the course of a marathon. Justin flew through that first 15 miles feeling brilliant, but by mile 18 he knew that he was going to have to really dig deep.
Digging deep now, he did slow down, but not by much and therein lies the benefit of a lot of hard work in training and preparing mentally for this race. Never underestimate being mentally prepared! Staying positive and mentally strong are key to a good marathon. Justin has learnt a lot about this over the last 10 years, this being his 5th London Marathon. Whilst he wasn’t crawling over the finishing line, he was very pleased to get to the end.
This was Justin’s comment on his marathon tactics, “I think this year, my tactic of racing a swifter first half made it more difficult for me but, overall, it was a successful outcome as I secured a new PB and inched the club record further forward”. This is a record which he has proudly owned since London 2017. So for any other budding Mighty Green runners, you have your target if you think you are fast enough.
He also conveyed his thanks to his support team led by Claire Ashby, who helped him keep on track. It was her idea to get him training on a treadmill though the winter and it proved invaluable for tempo training and improving his cadence and form.
Justin secured an overall time of 2h40m59s with his outward half being 1h19m24s and returning half 1h21m35s. His average pace was 6:08 minute miles. At the moment Justin is not looking for reasons to go back and do this all again. However, next year he would enter the M50-54 age category and if he ran the same time again, he could become a Top 10 age-grouper.
Exmouth Parkrun
Mighty Greens at Exmouth
Canal Run
David Wright tows The Line along the Canal
David Wright represented the Mighty Greens on Thursday the 27th of December, by taking part in the Taunton Running Club’s fun and friendly annual event, The Bridgewater To Taunton Canal Run. He parked the car up at Taunton railway station to catch the 08:36 to Bridgewater train and run back along the canal path to Taunton. This was sociable event with around 80 other brightly coloured runners getting on the train at Taunton. So with high spirits on and off the train David made the 14.5 mile run back only stopping for the hot soup halfway back. It was a great way to burn off the excesses of the season and finish the running year that was 2018.
Swimathon
Mighty Green Swimathon
Team leader Tony Velterop, led Claire and Justin Ashby, Becky and Ian Robson, Charles Edward Keen, Bert Dykema and John Ball in the bid for the Mighty Green Team to beat the previous years total of lengths swum.
With no extensive training programme for the team members and with very little swimming done all summer, the team of eight got on with the task at hand.
They were hopeful of beating the previous running club record of just over 130 lengths in the allocated hour of swimming. They had a brief team talk at the start, primarily consisting of each of them trying to remember the number which had been allocated to each in the team – 1 to 8… Also, despite all the bravado and heroic talk of swimming in Mighty Green mankinis and bikinis, it was agreed that being realistic was much more functional, indeed more sensible and very fortunate for the spectators and all others involved!
The whole team worked very hard and the Mighty Green spirit was not quashed, despite the fact that they were all flagging somewhat by the end. The team felt it was all worth the effort especially when they learnt that they had reached 149 lengths and gained a new Running Club record. Also the MG’s had third place overall amongst the 25 teams that took part.
Back to running again this week!