A few hardy souls completed the rather damp Chard 10K multi-terrain run on New Year’s Day. Amy Greenhalgh ran well to finish 16th in 42:59. Myrtle Croad continued his improvement; he was 23rd, 44:05 and Robin Britton 30th, 45:41. Despite getting a tad slower Harry Moore continues to enjoy competing and he finished this race in 1:47, well done Harry, writes Dave Mutter!

Lesley Adams was busy over the new year period. On Jan 1 she ran the Worcester parkrun 5K finishing 85th in 29:46, then on Saturday she ran the Cannon Hill (Birmingham) parkrun, finishing 229th in 28:02.

Garry Perratt, Patrick Devine-Wright and Matt Clist decided to run off the Christmas excess with a 40-mile jog.

Their route was the East Devon Way from Exmouth to Uplyme then continuing down to the Cobb.

Their target was to beat the fastest known time, Tom Bland’s 7:15, so they set a 7.00 schedule. All went well for the first 30-odd miles, accompanied for parts by James Jackson, Robin Carter and dog Ben, but the saturated ground made the largely off-road route very hard going and Garry was really struggling by the time they approached Colyton.

They were five minutes behind schedule up to Northleigh, dropped to five minutes down at Musbury and 15 down at Uplyme Mill which they held until reaching the Cobb Arms, thereby missing the record by a mere minute.

Still, it was a good effort under the conditions and leaves something to aim for when the weather improves! Man of the Match goes to Clist who ran more strongly than Perratt all the way, despite never having run further than a marathon before ... respect!