The year ended quietly for Sidmouth Running Club, writes John Perratt.

Neil Rutter made a rare appearance alongside Milan Goc at the Wellington Monument Race whilst the Ashby family made their annual pilgrimage to Clevedon for the Boxing Day Run.

The Sidmouth and Prague branches of the family entered seven runners into the event!

There were three of them in the 3km junior event; Will Ashby led the trio home, finishing 13th in a time of 13:08. Next was Joe Ashby, 16th, 13:11, followed by Sara Ashby, 37th in a time of 15:02.

The good weather brought out the runners and crowds for the four-mile road race - a whopping 869 runners in total!

Tom Merson was present again, but could only manage fourth place - a testament to the quality of the field.

The route is a circuit of Clevedon, through the town centre, past the college and up the dreaded Holly Lane hill (easy for the Sidmouth folk!), before a final flourish past the pier and esplanade.

Justin led the family runners home at a cracking average pace just over five-and-a-half minute miles to take 20th place, 200 places ahead of Patrick in 28.44. Simon finished in 31.26, but at the stage the finishing straight was getting crowded with runners crossing the line every second and so slowing everyone down.

Despite that Claire made it in 32.48 with roughly half of the total field behind her!

At this time of the year at least two runners from the club can look back on the year with satisfaction.

David Welsh set himself the target of competing in 53 events during 2013 – one for every year of his age!

The mission was completed with days to spare and he is now spending the holiday period thinking of the 2014 challenge.

Jo Earlam by way of contrast has not finished her task of completing 50 marathons before she reaches the equivalent age. Nevertheless it was a very productive year.

She started off with 20 under her belt but the Portsmouth Coastal Marathon the weekend before Xmas was her 15th of the year so she is well on schedule now. Keep that up and she will have knocked off the remaining 15 in the sixteen months available to her.

The rest of us will simply continue to enjoy our running, hopefully joined by those starting on the Clubs beginners’ course on Wednesday, January 8.

Details of the course are on our website or anyone interested can phone Colin 01395 578436 or Helen 567422.