Sidmouth Running Club’s Christopher Witkowski had an exceptional run in the Sportiva Events 2k, finishing in 12 minutes and earning a podium finish - 2nd in the 10-11 year-old boys’ category, writes Alexa Baker.
Amelia Womersley-Westlake ran with her mum/junior coach Donna Womersley-Westlake and finished the hilly route in a respectable 17 minutes. The club is very grateful to their parents for supporting and encouraging the Mighty Greens.
Not to miss out on the running action, Amelia’s dad Grahame Womersley-Westlake took on his toughest challenge to date, the Pagan Trails. This was a brand new event organised by Outer Edge, which started in Chagford and took in stone circles and pagan sites of north Dartmoor, an area steeped in ancient history and legends.
For Junior coach Grahame, it meant 28 miles through wind, mud, ice, rain, sleet, rivers, bogs and lots of hills; the first 1.3km was over 300m of elevation! But weeks of training combined with sessions at SidmouthFit paid off, as he hit his sub six-hour target, finishing in 5:54:00, 39th in a field of 97.
The Mighty Green said, although it was brutal, the stunning scenery made up for it and he will return to Dartmoor for more races in the future!
This week’s Sunday runners had a coach trip to look forward to, and thanks to run leader Richard King and chairman Terry Bewes for organising it. With a choice of three distances, the coach picked the runners up at Newton Poppleford (21 miles), Budleigh Salterton (16 miles) and Exmouth (10 miles) before dropping them off at the incinerator in Exeter.
Enjoying the settled part of the weather system, the MG’s ran alongside the river, through the marshes to Topsham, following the train line through Lympstone and into Exmouth.
Running the flat, dry route compared to all the previous hilly, muddy Sunday runs was a revelation and instead of returning to their cars at Exmouth, Mighty Greens Sarah Clapham and Carol Hounsell decided to carry on to Budleigh Salterton.
The group followed the old railway line to Knowle before heading into Budleigh, where Louise Dalton, Amanda Stokes and Richard King carried on to Newton Poppleford and Charlie Fawell gave Sarah and Carol a lift back to Exmouth.
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