There were runners and supporters all over the place this weekend including a full set of home nations events. As is the way lately, the triathlon crew were first off the mark, and this week it was the Cromhall Sprint Triathlon where Helen Prescott led club members home in a great time of 1h28m, followed jointly by Simon Rowland and Sally Tuer in 1h34m, which for Sally was enough to maintain her prize-winning ways and secure age graded victory. Not content with one victory Sally then headed to Northern Ireland to bag an age category win in the Carrickfergus Castle Triathlon on Sunday.
Another regular racer, Georgina Brice, hasn’t let hitting the 100-mile marker in April stop her. She’s already up to 102 after finishing the Phoenix Running Squid Marathon to take her total to 102 and counting.
In Wales, Hannah Kirkman ran a blistering 1h46m for the Swansea half marathon, taking several minutes off her previous time in the event.
The club has a very keen ultra-marathon section, and these tend to start on a Saturday to enable people to a)recover in time for work on Monday or, in extreme cases, b) have time to finish the race because it is so very long! We had a bit of both this weekend but I’ll start with one of the absolute club favourites for runners and supporters, the Dartmoor Discovery, or DD as it is universally known.
Most ultra marathon races are trail, with a lot of variety of surface – the DD is basically a very hilly 32.5 road ‘marathon’ with timing cut-offs at 13.1, 20 and 26.2 miles. That makes it a little more relentless than a typical ultra, but for some reason people love it, and even those that hate it come back for more!
For Running Forever it’s an annual pilgrimage that is made not only by the runners but also by the absolutely amazing supporters who can be found popping up all over the place to cheer-on club members (and everyone else) as they make their way through the tough course. The iconic spot is at 22 miles where the RFRC flags can be seen waving and the supporters can be heard cheering as runners crest yet another hill. It gives every one of us a tremendous lift, and this year there was so much extra lift from the wind that one of the flags blew off the flagpole!
We had a great turn out of 17 starters this year, although we lost 3 along the way. The DD weekend is much more than the race, and I know each of the DNFers were happy to have participated on the back of what hadn’t been ideal preparation.
Right at the front of the pack was our very own Dean Bennett who scored an amazing 2nd place in 4h2m, putting in a casual 3h12m for the first 26.2 and then just keeping on going. Dean also bagged the 1st V45 prize. Next back for the club was John Hunt in 5h26m, a fantastic time made more incredible when considering that John withdrew from last year’s DD with a broken leg. What a comeback! In third place for the club was James Lewes, striding home in 5h40m. Together that was enough to take the 3rd place men’s prize, giving Dean his third piece of glassware of the day.
Another notable finisher was Scott Weetch, who completed his 50th marathon/ultra marathon with this iconic race, maintaining his place on the all time DD finishers leaderboard in the process.
Congratulations are also due to Andy Phillips, Dave Loader, Emma Perkins, Fintan Murray, Joanna Gavins, Lisa Denson, Mark Wilson, Peter Hall, Sam Wharton and Simon Denson for completing the race within the 6h30m cut-off, with some having more time to spare than others!
Our furthest flung athlete this week was Andy Higham, who headed to Scotland for the Cairngorms Trail Ultra. The 36 spectacular miles of this event takes Andy to 12 out of 15 in his goal of completing an ultra marathon in each of the UK’s National Parks.
Two events remain for this week’s report and the distances start to get ridiculous. The first of them was Matt Price taking on the Jurassic Coast 100km covering pretty much all of Lyme Bay from Weymouth to Exmouth. To anyone who has run in this area you know it’s challenging terrain, made tougher still be starting the race at 9pm and straight into a night section. Matt defied the odds to complete race on what was a warm day and crossed the line in 20 hours.
So what do you do to top a 100km run? Do a 100 mile run of course, which is exactly what Robin Upton did when he took on the South Downs Way 100. The race starts just east of Winchester and takes in an impressive slice of the South East before finishing in Eastbourne. The dream time for those crazy individuals who take on a 100-miler is to complete the race in under 24 hours. Robin arrived in Eastbourne at dawn in an incredible time of 23h2m, breaking the club all-time record for 100 miles in the process and earning a coveted buckle in the process.
