Tony tackles 2 events in 2 days!

Always a popular race in the local area, this year the Chudleigh Carnival road race on Friday 19th July only attracted the two Exmouth Harriers, namely, Tony Hatchard and Jim Wyatt. Maybe because all the other Harriers were saving themselves for the Haytor Heller the following evening?! This did not deter Tony from having a stab at both races, however. 

The Chudleigh Carnival race is run over a hilly course on country lanes surrounding the village, covering a distance of 5 miles 694 yards (just under 6 miles, to the more metrically-minded individual)! It always benefits from a "carnival" atmosphere as the street is closed to cars and spectators can line it whilst giving their support to the runners before sojourning into one of the nearby pubs to await their return back to the finish line by the church.

Tony put in a fine performance in a quality field (that was headed up by local athlete Tom Merson) to finish in 7th place in a time of 33:05, behind a trio of runners from Bristol and from Torbay. 

Jim Wyatt is 71 next month but once again there was no specific category for over 70s, who had to take their chances with runners in the younger 65 – 69 group. Jim  was 132^nd overall in 52:08 and there were 173 finishers of whom 52 (almost a third) were female.