Exe-rated runners!

Exe-rated runners!
The successful Harriers team, en masse, at the Erme Valley Relays, July 2013

Sunday 12 August 2012

Cathy's 5k come back!

On Tuesday 7th August it was Run Exe 5k time again. Conditions this month were pretty much as near to perfect as you could get, with zero wind and light cloud cover, making it not too hot and no headwind to slow the runners on the river bank.

Toeing the startline of this fast PB potential course were 3 and a half Harriers (we'll get to the 'half' in a moment)! They included Cathy Newman who we are very pleased to welcome back to the area and the club as she has now returned from working as a VSO in Eithiopia and is very much looking forward to getting on top of her running again. Tonight's 5k was, in her words, 'just to set a bench mark to work of for the rest of the season'.

She has been struggling with an injury in her right thigh for sometime and so her pre-race goal was to get in under 20 minutes and use that time as a platform upon which to improve. As she approached the finish line she was initially disappointed as she read the clock as being on 19:50 and thought she wouldn't make her target. As she got nearer, however, she saw that it was actually reading 18:50 and so she crossed the line in a fine time of 19:06, almost a minute ahead of her own expectations. This gave her 2nd female and 23rd place overall. Good to have you back Cathy!

Next in was Andy Johnson who always enjoys a fast blast around a 5k course and is a regular attendee of the Ironbridge runner series. On this occasion he ran in to stop the clock at 20:15 for 34th place. This was an improvement of almost 40 seconds on his time from the previous round last month, showing just how much the lack of wind on this course can effect times.

Dave Eveleigh also had a fine run, posting a time of 21:14 which gave him 45th place overall and 3rd MV55.  Unfortunately Dave was not able to top his superb performance from the last round and dip under the 21 minute mark this time, but he'll no doubt come back fired up to have another crack at it in the final round in September.

And so to the 'half a Harrier'. Well, he's half in that he runs for us as 2nd claim but he's certainly not half when it comes to describing his performance. Tom Merson had the run of his life to set a new PB and to smash his own (already impressive) course record by 11 whole seconds as he was pushed all the way to the line by his Bristol and West team mate, Shaun Antell, and he recorded a blistering time of 14:47. Luckily for Tom, his form and the conditions both came good on the night and this will be a tough time for any local athlete to better on this track. Well done Tom!

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