July racing round-up

July has seen Harriers in action all over the county, in the neighbouring counties of Somerset and Dorset and also further afield in North Wales. Events have varied from shorter 5k races to some longer road races, some trail races, relay events and even a couple of fell races. Below is a synopsis of the relay events in which Harriers have participated in true team spirit this month!


Erme Valley Relays
Harriers had a great start to the month when, on 1st July, we had 24 runners making up 6 teams (out of a total 64 teams) at the Erme Valley relays in Ivy Bridge, near Plymouth. This friendly yet highly competitive event seemed to bring out the very best of runners from many local running clubs and so the quality of the competition was high. Nevertheless, all the Harriers gave their all and all six teams held their own against the opposition.
The first Harrier's team home, in an impressive 12th place overall, was our male vet 40 team. Comprised of Dave Stone, Mike Musgrove, Richard Bishop and Jamie Palmer, the team missed out on the top spot in their category by less than a minute on aggregate.
Next over the finish line was our open male team, with Adam Miller, newcomer Alex Shaw, Mark Thompson and Scott Jordan all putting in strong performances allowing them to finish in 18th place overall.
Next came our women's team, which hugely benefitted from having former international runner and Harrier Cathy Newman back on British soil during a break from her current base in Ethiopia. Running the fastest female leg of the night, Cathy got us off to a strong start, with Caroline Pleasance, Emma Dupain and myself, Ellie Sutcliffe, also running hard to secure the team 2nd spot in the female competition and 24th place overall.
Not far behind the women's team was our male vet 50 team, which comprised of Dave Wright, our press man Dave Eveleigh, Terry Oldham and with Hugh Marsden anchoring them home. A mix up with the results on the night did our vet 50s a slight injustice and placed them 2nd in their category, but further examination of the timings revealed that they did in fact clinch the top spot, with strong performances contributed by all four runners.
Next home was a mixed sex team which comprised Stan Mason, Dave Backway, Nigel Dupain and, showing these men how it's done, Katie Comer brought the team home. They finished in a creditable 48th place overall.
The final team competing was another women's team composed of Dawn Teed, Joan Mason, Lorraine Gilson and an already familiar face, Emma Dupain, who dutifully lept into action to fill the fourth spot. All four ladies ran strongly with Emma's time being only 30 seconds down on that of her first lap, bringing them in in 50th spot overall. All the runners had a great night which carried on after the running efforts when we all retreated into the rugby club for some hard earned food and drink!

Tavistock Road Relays
Bastille day, July 14th, saw a small but well-formed collection of Harriers storming Tavistock (not la Bastille!) for the Tavistock Town relay event. This race requires each of the four team members to run one of four legs, measuring just over a mile in distance, around the town centre’s riverside park. The Harriers were, however, short on personnel and so two athletes had to run more than once to enable the club to finish two teams! As with the Erme Valley relays, competition was fierce, with a selection of local clubs fielding some very strong teams. Nevertheless, the Exmouth A team finished in a highly respectable 7th out of the 33 club teams competing and the Exmouth B team was a creditable 10th.
Individual times for the A team were Adam, Miller 5:23, Tony Hatchard 5:44, Jamie Palmer 5:39 and Dave Stone 5:30. Dave’s run was all the more impressive given that he had already run 5:21 on the B team’s first leg! He was followed in that team by Hugh Marsden who ran 5:51 and finally Adam Miller warmed down from his first leg by running the third and fourth stints for the ‘B’ team in 6:10 and 6:02.

East Devon Way Relays
A little bit... er, no, a lot longer in distance than the Erme and Tavy relays and without the luxury of being fully marshalled, the East Devon Way event covers a total distance of 42 miles between Exmouth in Devon and Lyme Regis in Dorset. This distance is divided into legs of varying lengths between the four members of each team, who must navigate their own way between the various checkpoints... easier said than done!!
On a windy and overcast July day, three teams of Harriers made the mamouth(!) trip to the start line, a mile down the road from club HQ at the sea front by the rail station and start of the Exmouth-Lympstone cycle track. The hardy Harriers lined up alongside a relatively small field of only 8 teams and prepared themselves for a long day! The following report comes from Terry Oldham who ran in the mixed team:

‘When is the East Devon Way not the East Devon Way? When it continues into Dorset and ends at the steps of the Cobb Tavern at Lyme Regis. The official route takes you from Exmouth via valleys (and hills) of the Otter, Sid, and Axe, to end at the banks of the Lyme at Uplyme. However, Axe Valley Runners, based at Seaton, who hosted the event, decided that they would add a few extra miles (and an extra hill) on to the route ‘to make it more interesting’, hence the finish in Lyme Regis.
8 teams of 4 or more runners took part in the 42 mile team relay event. But it was Exmouth Harriers event on the day as it was the Harriers who swept the board of prizes.
Although numbers were down slightly on last year’s event, the competition was still fierce, and once again, Exmouth Harriers Mens Team won the overall event and the team prize. To do that they needed to keep two Axe Valley Runners teams at bay who finished in 2nd and 3rd place, who enjoying local knowledge and the likes of Gary Perratt taking part, was no mean feat.
The Harriers men not only retained the prize but for good measure knocked 11 minutes off last year’s time. The team members were Mike Musgrove, Dave Stone, Adam Miller and Hugh Marsden (the latter fresh from winning the Vets 50 prize at the Haytor Heller the night before!).
There are only two prizes to be won in this event, first mens team and first ladies, and so ensuring that all the spoils came home to Exmouth, the Exmouth Ladies Team made sure they won their prize category finishing 5th overall. This was the first time for an Exmouth Ladies team in this event, and the team comprised Ellie Sutcliffe, Emma Dupain, Dawn Teed and Caroline Pleasance, and special mention must go to Caroline who was handed two very difficult legs of the event to complete and without the benefit of knowing where she was going nevertheless brought the team home to success.
Although no prize category for the third Exmouth team, a Mixed team, it managed to finish 4th overall, with a total time of 5 hours 51 minutes, and took away a real sense of satisfaction, if not four bottles of champagne! Team members were Dave Backway, Scott Jordan, Terry Oldham and Lorraine Gilson, and this time special mention to Lorraine who although ‘navigationally challenged’ put in an excellent performance to keep the team just ahead of the Exmouth Ladies.’
Although the ‘Dark Destroyers’ left empty handed, I thought the event was well worth the effort and thoroughly enjoyed the day by the seaside, by the rivers, meadows, hills, and more hills, cows, bullocks, horses, dogs, holidaymakers . . . .