Records tumble at Bideford Half, Allen tackles a 33-mile Ultra, Kim Knight completes her first 10K and Richard completes his 49th marathon

On Sunday 5^th March, Trotters travelled to take part in the ever-popular Bideford Half Marathon, organised by Bideford AAC. It’s a quick, PB-potential course, with the first half gently undulating on roads, and the second half mainly along an old railway track, taking runners through a tunnel. Although cold with a blustery wind in places, the forecast heavy rain mainly stayed away so conditions could have been a lot worse.

Two club records fell at the event, with Lucy Payne knocking over 45 minutes off of the club's FV65 records that was set in 2008. Lucy recorded a time of 2:01:07, and claimed first FV65 at the race. Also, Graeme Baker broke his own club record with a fantastic time of 2:03:03 and clamed first V75. Very well done to both.

There were also a good number of runners who claimed PBs at the race (these are watch times as chip times are not out yet). Runners include Suzie Mills (2:27;07, for 1:27 PB, following her marathon PB from three weeks ago), Oli Prouse (1:45:45, 3min PB), Lucy Evans (1:51:53, 5min30secs PB) and Nigel Bartlett took a massive 8mins50 off of his previous best time.  Finally, it was the first Half Marathon that Nikki Evans and Scott Stephens completed, so well done to them.

Full results are below.  Please note that these are from the FOS website, which are currently showing only gun times.  Unfortunately, I am going to have to use these times for the report, so apologies if these are different to what your chip times should be.

Travis Wood (141, 1:34:47), Matthew Dunn (147, 135:12), Craig Churchill (152, 1:35:20), Nigel Barnett (159, 135:55), Hannah Jones (174, 1:37:23), Kevin Sampson (179, 1:37:52), Roger Hales (186, 1:38:15), Paul Sharples (265, 1:42:20), Neil Pallant (333, 1:45:26), Oli Prouse (345, 1:45:56), Graydon Widdicombe (369, 1:46:49), Peter Kirby (424, 1:49:28), Lucy Evans (455, 1:51:53), Kathryn Steemson (544, 1:54:48), Kirsty Bowman (566, 1:55:40), Lucy Payne (708, 2:02:32), Graeme Baker (715, 2:03:03), Eleanor Taylor (753, 2:05:19), Rod Payne (766, 2:05:45), Kevin Besford (769, 2:05:50), Scott Stephens (808, 2:07:56), Sharon Bowman (838, 2:10:12), Nikki Evans (938, 2:18:18) and Suzie Mills (1026, 2:28:02).

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Allen Taylor travelled to Warminster to compete in the Imber Ultra, which is a 33-mile self-navigate trail run organised by Avon Valley Runners.

The Ultra starts and finishes at Leighton Recreation Centre in Westbury in the northwest region of the Imber Mountain Ranges. After a few miles along the Salisbury Plain, runners follow the Imber Range Perimeter Path anti-clockwise. The route was very varied: footpaths, metalled roads, bridleways and tracks.

Underfoot it was extremely muddy and slippery and it was windy throughout with a few heavy showers, the last 15 miles being the worst as Allen was running into a continuous headwind.

Allen finished 9th in 5:11:58, which is course PB for him of 14 minutes from his 2014 times.

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Kim Knight completed her first 10km race on Sunday 5^th March in Cardiff, at the St David’s Day Run.  Kim finished in a time of 51.48, which she is delighted with. Conditions were pretty windy, with runners having to negotiate some impressive puddles along the course.  Kim says: “The entry was a Christmas present from my brother who lives in Cardiff, and who entered me in my maiden name – I’ve only been married for 19 years!”  Unfortunately Kim’s brother couldn’t run due to a hamstring injury although her 16-year old son, Ben, managed 39:10 for 18^th place out of 1780.  Well done both.

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Richard Keatley completed his 49th marathon on the weekend, at Walton-on-the-Thames in London, organised by Phoenix running events. It’s part 1 of a series of 4 to receive a big medal at the end of the year, and Richard says that Phoenix do some of the best medals around.

The weather on the route was nice & sunny, but it was a long day for Richard with him setting off from Devon at 5am and getting back at 6pm. Richard ran with cousin and some friends finishing in 4:47. Richard will be attempting his 50th next weekend and then will be taking a well-earned rest before Manchester in April.

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Thanks for the race report from Kim, Richard and Marie.