Exe-rated runners!

Exe-rated runners!
The successful Harriers team, en masse, at the Erme Valley Relays, July 2013

Monday 12 March 2012

Ellie shows the men how it's done!

Where are all the men? Why aren't they coming with me?! Do they know something that I don't?!

Also on the same day as the Grizzly and the Bath half, the Great Western 10k took place in Ellie Sutcliffe's (a.k.a. yours truly) home town of Sherborne, Dorset. Although not on a par with the gruelling test that the Grizzly represents, this race still offered its fair share of different terrain to negotiate, including boggy fields, very muddy farm tracks, woods, an orchard and some country lanes. The route was undulating to hilly and with the ground being very wet and boggy, it was quite energy sapping.

The horn sounded and we all set off and I suddenly found myself shooting off the front of the pack with no-one, not even a single male runner, up alongside me. I then started to panic, wondering if they knew something about the course that I didn't! Around the first corner and the eventual winner, Shaun Parkin from South West Road Runners, had pulled up alongside me then started to pull away. It took about 1 mile before 2 more men overtook me. Shaun was away and gone, but I kept these other two in my sights until the finish.

In the closing half mile the guy behind me was closing in but I managed to hold him off and finished 1st female and 4th overall, which is my highest ever placing in a mixed-sex race, in 43.25. I can only think that all the decent male runners were at the Grizzly or in Bath, they sure as heck weren't in Dorset!!!

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