On Sunday, three members of Axe Valley Runners took part in the 32nd Wellington Monument Challenge, writes Dave Mutter.

This 10k road run is organised by Taunton Running Club and features a rather long, steep climb up to the Monument.

The race was won last year by AVR’s Jake Smith. Unfortunately, he has various university commitments now, and was unable to defend his title.

However, AVR did have success this year with Matt Hewer winning the first male over 40 prize in a time of 41:24, finishing 22nd overall.

One of the oddities of competitive running is looking forward to getting older. This is Matt’s first veteran category win having reached the 40 mark in the summer.

Terry Emmett finished in 19th in 41:04 and the ever-improving Joel Seward came home 60th in 45:30.

A field of 300 competed this year. There were four AVRs entered. However, the very experienced club captain Eleanor Wood made the rather fundamental mistake of not checking the start time, which was moved forward half an hour this year (Eleanor thought the race head quarters was rather quiet when she turned up to collect her number!).

Clearly mistakes happen to the best of us, but Eleanor still stayed to cheer the AVR team in at the finish, even if she was a little miffed not to be running herself.

Congratulations to the 74 brave souls who completed the latest Seaton Parkrun in lashing rain and a howling gale and, of course, a special thanks to the 26 marshals and helpers braving the beast. As for the run, it was a Honiton RC one-two with Adam Hennessey taking first place with a time of 19:53 and Mike Mears was second in 20:46.

Stephen Bridger of Purbeck Runners was 3rd, 20:59. Ellen Keast was the first female in 22:45 with Honiton RC’s Jo Davey second female, in 22:59, and Emilie Tones was third female with her time being 23:03.