Dartmoor ‘Delight’
Karen Eyre and Rupert Pady took part in The Pagan Trails half marathon in the toughest of conditions on Dartmoor. The challenging route visits many of the stone circles and pagan sites of north Dartmoor, steeped in ancient history and legends where mythical, mystical Dartmoor meets the lush valleys of the North Teign and Bovey rivers. Rupert was an excellent 27th in 2:30.45 with Karen finishing 78th in 3:04.52 with 140 completing the race in the wet and windy conditions.
Further afield
Three AVRs travelled further afield to take part in races this weekend.
In Helsby, Cheshire Angela Kerr ran the Essar Four Villages Half, the 40th running of this event. She completed the 13.1m in 2:12.16 in strong winds towards the end as Storm Isha arrived in the UK. Angela finished 1080th from nearly 1500 competitors and third F65, and now waits to hear if this will qualify her for the England Masters team.
Over in Essex, Cliff Marriott completed the Benfleet 15, which consisted of 15 multi-terrain miles of hills and mud in windy conditions. The course included parts of the 2012 Olympic mountain biking course as well as Canvey Island sea wall and the undulating Hadleigh Downs. Cliff finished in 2:35.13 and described it as perfect preparation for the Grizzly. He also received lots of love for the Grizzly from fellow runners!
While in the home counties Steve Lewis ran the Farnborough Winter Half Marathon. The popular, fast and flat 13.1m road race around the business and technology parks is said to be the ‘coolest’ half-marathon due to its winter timetable; it wasn’t quite the -5 degrees of last year but the wind from the incoming Storm Isha was challenging.
Steve finished in 1460th place and sixth M70 in 2:06.43 with nearly 2000 completing the event.
Windy Seaton parkrun
It was a battle of Joel Seward and Ritchie Durrant at Seaton parkrun on Saturday with Joel taking first finisher spot in 17:40 just ahead of Ritchie who finished in 17:48. Debbie Whiston was first female in 21:02, also first on age-grade in 76%, with Kerry Board third female in 23:19.
Despite extremely windy conditions Lucy Hanley managed a PB in 32:30 and Andy Goy celebrated his 300th parkrun.
