W'Otter l'Otter water by the Otter!

Richard, Mike, Ellie and Tom at the start of the Otter Rail and River Run 10k.

Harriers claimed 1st overall, 1st female overall and almost (but not quite) 1st male team!

On Saturday 14th July, on yet another rainy, cloudy miserable summer's day, 4 Harriers (well, 3 official Harriers and one slightly less official one, but we'll get to that later...) were at Tipton St. John for the Otter Rail and River Run 10k. Earlier in the week it looked uncertain as to whether the race would even go ahead as the said "river", the Otter, had burst its banks and the village playing field - also the start, finish, race HQ and the target of the funds raised by the race - found itself under 2ft of water! Fortunately the floods subsided sufficiently for the race to go ahead safely, but it meant that the course was muddier, boggier and wetter than usual. Runners were warned not to expect fast times or a course PB!

For the Harriers, the racing stalwarts of Mike Musgrove and myself, Ellie Sutcliffe, were there, along with a new face to the club, Richard Hawes, and our star-turn second claim member, Tom Merson. The male field was of a very high standard this year as, aside from Tom, 2 fine quality athletes from Exeter Harriers showed up, in addition to some other top level local runners from the nearby clubs of Sidmouth, Axe Valley, SWRR and Teignbridge.

Off we went and made our way along the flat stretch of river bank, but it was muddy and clayey and so keeping up a good pace was still hard going. Tom, as predicted, shot off the front end never to be seen again until the finish. Mike was up well up there trying to hang onto the other front runners and I was a short distance behind, trying to keep sight of Mike, with Richard keeping up a good pace not too far behind me.

After the flat river stretch the course turns uphill and into some woods, where it joins the old Ottery - Exmouth disused railway line. This was a nice, steady downhill stretch back towards the river, before you turned off onto some more muddy tracks and sunken lanes, some of which were totally flooded and you had to plough through stretches of muddy water that were thigh deep and about 10m long - all adds to the fun!

When Tom arrived back at the school playing field and the finish, not that many people were there to greet him as they were expecting the lead runner to take around 38 minutes in the day's conditions, but Tom took them all by surprise and stormed back in under 35 minutes to set a new course record! Not a fast, PB course indeed!! He was a full 3 minutes clear of the next two athletes, both from Exeter Harriers, who drew on time in a final sprint to the line.

Mike had a very good race to finish 7th overall in a high quality field. Ordinarily that should have been easily good enough for the top vet slot, but the Exeter Harriers athlete who placed 3rd overall had an outstanding run and upstaged Mike to 2nd MV40. Mike clocked a time of 40:36.

I came in next as 1st female, over 2 and 1/2 minutes clear of the next female, Jane Allison of Plymouth Harriers, in a time of 42:18. This gave me 10th place overall.

Richard Hawes had a very fine run and his swift time of 45:45 gave him 22nd place overall and 6th MV40. Richard is new to the club and also new to competitive running, this only being his 3rd ever race! With a  more structured training regime his already good times could turn into superb times and he certainly looks set to be an asset to our MV40 contingent in the future! Watch this space!

And now for the contentious bit, because every race has to have some drama, even local fun runs that take place alongside a welly-wanging contest on the village fête day....

Sidmouth RC were awarded with the male team prize but a protest from the Teignbridge Trotters team captain as one Sidmouth member was not wearing a club vest meant that Tom, Mike and Rich got promoted and called up to receive the shield. They were the proud owners of this shield for 2 full minutes before a second protest was lodged as Richard was not wearing a club vest either, and so after a brief but joyous 2 minutes of ownership they were then forced to hand it over to the 3rd placed male team.... the Teignbridge Trotters! Oh well, never mind, these things happen. The guys were not too bothered as they would rather win it outright than via a loophole in the system anyway. But we'd better expedite the delivery of Rich's vest before his next race to avoid any further political uprisings!!

A good event, well-organised, terrific but challenging course and always good to support the events of our neighbouring clubs. Next year we should get a crack team together and go and win that team trophy for real!

Tom, giving us all a lesson in what it should look like!

Mike, also striding out strongly at the finish.