Honiton Running Club Juniors were once again at the final Winter 3k series track meeting in force, being the largest junior club.

Honiton Running Club Juniors were once again at the final Winter 3k series track meeting in force, being the largest junior club. This was the fifth in a series of races that started last October and several Honiton runners were in contention for category prizes. There was also the incentive of chocolate bars for those running a personal best. All the runners did well and the head coach, Richard Harvey, will have to provide eight bars of chocolate for some very hard fought PBs.The first race saw chocolate going to Robyn Moyse and Katie Davey who both ran very hard with Katie also coming 3rd in the U13 girls category. Sean Kingston joined his brother Dale in the series for the first time and both had good races. In the second race Jake Harvey had a good battle with the front runners and eventually came out on top with a new PB by three seconds. Daisy Flanagan has not run much recently but was in contention for a category prize and pushed herself hard, as did Sophie Keywood. Even though they couldn't quite hit their best form Daisy still achieved 3rd place in the U15 girls category. The third race was contested by newcomer Josh Turner who ran an excellent debut, and Reuben Heeler-Frood was up with the leading group for most of the race but couldn't quite manage to hang on to 3rd place in the final sprint despite registering a 32 second PB!The 4th race was run at a very fast pace for juniors and saw some great battles. Steven Trenchard managed to hold off a determined Kit Grierson of Sidmouth by just a stride and equalled his PB (half a bar of chocolate?). Then came a battle between Tom Dunn of Honiton and Emma Keirnan of Axe Valley which was standing at two victories each. They matched each other stride for stride on the last lap and there was a terrific sprint finish with Tom winning by a second, but Emma had pushed him so hard that he sliced 19 seconds off his PB. Finally there was the battle between Sam Urquart and Lily Helston who have been matching each other over several races this year. It was very close going into the last lap with Lily just ahead. Lily manages to find another gear just when other runners are tiring but Sam stayed with her. In a thrilling finish Lily caught and passed two other runners and Sam came in just behind. They had pushed each other to new PBs by over 20 seconds. Lily gained 1st place in the U13 Girls category and Sam was 3rd in U13 Boys. Sam deserves a special mention for being the only Honiton Junior to record a new PB in each of his five races.