Otterton Reindeer Run re-routed!

On Saturday 1st December, Exmouth Harriers had three representatives in the main 10k Otterton Reindeer Run race, although many second claim Exmouth Harriers were also running as Exmouth Belles.

The race had to be re-routed due to the recent flooding that led to the Otter bursting its banks, so the river bank trail had to be avoided by sending the runners through an adjacent field. Of course, running through wet, boggy, muddy and rutted fields is much harder work than running on a neat, compacted, flat gravel path, and so times from this year's race were considerably down on other years and shouldn't be compared.

Jon Garrity had a very fine race considering he was also about to compete in the Devon County Cross-country championships the following day, and he finished a very commendable 11th overall out of the 196 finishers in a time of 44.42. The results do not distinguish between the different age categories so we don't know whether or not Jon won the battle of the vet 40s, but he will have been in with a shot.

Exmouth Harriers' chairman, Bob Keast, is totally at home off road, thanks to his ample training on hashing nights and in mountain marathons. He posted 55:46 for 72nd place overall.

Susan Hill made up the trio of Harrier performances, sploshing her way around the course to a time of 66:15 and 140th place.

The overall winner was Laurence Bolam of the host club, Sidmouth, in a time of 39.33. An unattached runner, Jo Whitfield, won the women's race, 20th place overall in 47.58.

The fun-run, which is usually a small, subsidiary race run alongside the main 10k run, was almost as popular this year, with 163 finishers. What is so fantastic to see is that almost all of those participants were children, and most of them under-12s. Exmouth Harrier off-spring made a large contribution to that number, with Mike and Nic Musgrove, Martin and Diane Richards, Rich Hawes, Hannah Bown and Lisa and Tony Hatchard all encouraging their children to have a go. These made up most of the Lympstone Primary School running clubs entrants, who, under the able training of Mike Musgrove, are really showing some early talent and promise for the sport. One of their runners actually won the race outright! All the juniors ran brilliantly and gave it all they had, with littl'uns as young as 7 - in the case of Rich's son - beating many of the under-17 athletes! Hopefully we were witnessing the future of the Exmouth Harriers in action here. We'll be having to start a junior's section soon to make sure they don't get spotted and poached! ;-)