Dave Backway and Jamie Palmer (bunny)-hop to PBs at Yeovilton

On the Easter Monday, 9th April, two Exmouth Harriers travelled up to Somerset for the Easter Bunny 10k race which is held on a super fast course around the Yeovilton airbase. This race always attracts a good quality field due to the massive PB potential of the course and, at the top end, the generous prize money on offer. However, any PB seekers this year had to be prepared to battle on through some very wet and windy conditions that have become the norm on a bank holiday weekend!

But this didn't deter our two Harriers - Jamie Palmer and Dave Backway - from going out hard and giving the race their best shot. For Dave this meant setting yet another massive new PB in the process, following on from his superb 1h28 half-marathon clocking at Bideford in March. Over the 10k distance he managed to knock 5 minutes off his previous best to dip in under that magical 40 minute mark and recorded a time of 39:56 for 72nd place over all. Come on - now is the time to start marketing your training regime, surely Dave? A regime that seems to incorporate unlimited weekends of stag-dos and partying and yet which sees you getting faster and faster is surely going to appeal to he mass runners market?!! Given how windy the conditions were there must be still some room to shave more precious seconds off that time later in the year?

For Jamie, having only  run 10k on the road three times before, this was rare outing so he was very pleased to finish inside the the top 20, in 18th place and also bagging himself a new PB of 35:33, knocking 80 seconds off his previous best. A top 20 placing in a field of this quality is no mean feat, and we are sure that Dave Stone must be getting a little hot under the collar around about now if Jamie is churning out these sorts of times...!

The race was won in a swift 30:19 by the in-form Kevin Heyward, which was a PB for him. The second placed athlete, Shaun Antell, also ran a PB highlighting what a fast course this is and our two Harriers would certainly recommend it to any others seeking to record a fast time.

Very well done to them on such strong performances!


A few days later, encouraged by his strong run at Yoevilton, Jamie Palmer then opted to run at the Ken Trickey Open Meeting on the 14th April, though this time stepping down in distance to 800m which, he informs me, was his particular fave in his hey-day!
After finding the pace for the 1st lap a real struggle, Jamie hit the bell in 65s then ran the second lap in 66 to finish in 2:11:3 which he was suitable pleased with as he hasn't even started his summer track training programme yet and the conditions were not the best either. This placed Jamie 5th in the race and 1st veteran athlete.
Not willing to leave it there, Jamie had a couple of hrs break before going on to tackle the 1500m. Having messed up his warm up he just had enough time to shed all his kit before the starting gun went off! He covered the 3 and 3/4 laps in a time of 4:32; a solid run bringing him home in 4th place and again, 1st vet.

More to come from Jamie later in the summer season we feel.... :-)