Bideford Half Marathon Press Report

On Sunday a small group from Honiton Running Club set off for Bideford in the torrential rain unaware of the astonishing performance they were about to witness. By the time they arrived in Bideford thankfully the rain had cleared and the town was taken over with well over 1000 runners from all over the South West to take part in the Bideford Half Marathon. The route is slightly undulating on the way out but the route back is on the Tarka Trail, a disused railway line, and therefore almost flat which can lead to good times. Honiton runners have a habit of doing fast times and gaining PBs on this course (e.g. Nick Bradley-Carter, Pete Ruhen to name but two) and today was no exception. First back for Honiton, after battling against the wind over the last couple of miles, was Julie Payne who managed a PB at 1:35:19 and was 3rd in her category confirming her excellent form at the moment which bodes well for the London Marathon. Second back was Roger Saunders in a time of 1:37:18 closely followed by Grahame Rooms at 1:37:24 though both were unaware of each other. For Grahame this was a new PB so he was well pleased and Roger was within a minute of his run last year. Next came the amazing performance of Brent Dicks who absolutely smashed his previous PB by 17 mins to finish in 1:42:51 thanks to all the hard London Marathon training he has been doing. Warren Oak followed in Brent’s wake in 1:49:32 also training for London. Vanessa Glyn Jones, also running the London Marathon finished in 2:15:29 which was 10th in her category so a very respectable time. So with 3 PBs Honiton runners returned with smiles on their faces glad they had braved the rain and enjoyed the Tarka Trail.