Ruth Hits A Centrury

A quintet of Trotters headed to Plymouth for Britain’s Ocean City Running Festival on Sunday, taking on half marathon, 10k and 5k distances. David Bowen was the lone Trotter over 13.1miles, clocking 2:02:28 to place 915th overall. There were 1786 finishers. 

Callum Price and Jo Griffin took on the 10k and came home in in 55:34 and 60:34 respectively to finish 254^th and 407^th overall. There were 801 finishers. Lucy Evans and Margaret Butt settled for the 5k distance, running together to finish 153^rd and 154^th in a shared time of 34:09.

Meanwhile in Exeter, Darren Petch logged his sixth half marathon of the year at the Green Lantern Half in an unofficial time of 3 hours and 8 minutes. 

The previous weekend, slightly overshadowed by the club’s epic Dartmoor Discovery event, Ruth Johnson was completing her own monumental challenge. She completed the South Downs Way 100, one of the UK’s most iconic ultra-races, covering the entirety of the South Downs Trail.

She finished in 277^th out of 301 finishers in 28hours 49minutes and 33 seconds. Afterwards, she said: “I loved the experience, from the start of the training all the way through to the race. I was very laid back about the whole thing, as I didn’t want to feel nervous or under pressure, it was my challenge and I wanted to enjoy it.

“I was quite confident I would get to the end, as I had trained so hard, but of course anything can happen and that’s what I really liked about that distance, the unknown! I didn’t hit any points where I felt I couldn’t go on, but I did have swelling in my left foot from 70 miles, which was so painful, this also caused a couple of blisters, this is where the mental side comes in.

“I just had to block it out, it’s weird, you just stop feeling it! You get to the finish and think you’ll never run around that track, but suddenly my legs felt light again. Centurion are first class events to enter, everyone is so supportive, fantastic aid stations, they really look after you from beginning to end and the route was so well marked, I didn’t look at the map on my watch once.

“I did say I would only do one 100, but by Wednesday, I was looking for another to enter!” Congratulations Ruth on an incredible achievement!