Far flung marathon runs

Sidmouth Running Club members took part in a variety of events in a variety of different locations this weekend, writes Sarah Brown.

John Perratt and Brian Gosling stayed local, and on Sunday competed in the Colyton Fiver; a five mile race organised to raise money for the BBC Children in Need Appeal. Both finished around the 40 minute mark, with Perratt coming in a couple of minutes before Gosling, and as ever winning his age category!

Also opting for a shorter distance this weekend, Sarah Brown represented the club in her university city of Portsmouth, running a very quick (for her) time of 22.54mins in the Great South Run 5k.

The most popular event this weekend, however, was arguably one of the hardest. Marathon veteran Jo Earlam travelled to Palma in Majorca to compete in her sixth marathon of the year. Despite a strong headwind off the sea, she finished the course in an impressive time of 4.22 hours.

Also signing up to the challenge of 26.2 miles, Aaron Smith travelled to Dublin for his debut attempt at a marathon.

After training hard over the summer months, and putting in endless hours of long runs, Smith was targeting a very strong finishing time. The race was going well and Aaron passed the first half in less than two hours, putting him on course for a finish of 3.40 hours.

However, at mile 23, cramp struck and refused to go away, which removed all chance of a sub 3.45hr finish. Crossing the line at 3.53 hours is still an amazing achievement for his first marathon, and Smith should be very proud, despite confessing to ‘crying like a baby’ as he finished!

The winter season is now starting, and with the clock change, Wednesday night runs will reluctantly switch back to being on-road, but races continue off-road, where the running club is normally strongly represented.