4 Harriers "fly" around the forest

To kick of a very hectic August bank holiday weekend of racing in the region, 4 Exmouth Harriers headed to Haldon Forest on the evening of Friday 24th to take part in the Dawlish Coasters organised 'Forest Flyer 5' race. As the name suggests, this is usually a 5 mile trail race, however, this year a marshalling mishap with one of the directional signs being turned around before the race meant that the runners headed back towards the finish prematurely, only completing a run of 3.92 miles in distance. It must be every race director's nightmare, and our thoughts go out to the Dawlish Coasters who always do an excellent job of staging races, so we hope that this will not deter them from running the event again next year.

So, the times below reflect the fact that the course was just short of 4 miles rather than 5 (otherwise, they are certainly exceptional performances!). As it stands there were still 3 very good performances from the Harriers.

Leading them home was Howard Bailey, in an excellent 5th place overall and in a super quick time of 23:35. Howard was only a little over a minute behind the winner, Pete Monaghan from Torbay AC.

He was followed just over a minute later by the in form Marc Cox who ran a very strong race for 9th place overall in a time of 24:30.

Very hot on Marc's heels was Jon Garrity who ran 24:50 for 13th place overall. His category position is unknown as they are not listed on the results page. However it's likely that he was in the top 3.

The only Harriers female representative on the night was Moira Glen who finished in 35th place overall. Moira had an excellent run, leading the ladies race for some of the way but unable to keep up the pace on some of the killer climbs, she went onto finsih 3rd female, earning herself a bottle of wine for her top effort. Moira was also the first female vet runner home in a time of 28:38, just 28 seconds behind the first female runner.

There were 118 finishers.

Marc, Moira (with her winning wine!) and Jon after the race.