In the absence this year of the Ottery St Mary 10K, six Honiton runners drove over to Crewkerne for a similar event. The only trouble was the hills. The race started with a 100ft climb with prizes for King and Queen of the Hill, but there were no Honiton contenders for these prizes. Once at the top there was a nice descent before the next climb came along. So it went on round the course, either going up or going down, and Richard Harvey who had assumed that after the first hill the race would be quite flat got a bit of a shock. He still managed to get round in 43 minutes 51 seconds and lead the Honiton contingent home. Next in was Vernon Gillard who hasn't managed to race much this year but had a good run of 44:55. He was followed by Rod Inglis who likes to run steadily for the first half of a race and then go for it in the second. This has the advantage of overtaking lots of tiring runners as he works his way through the field. He finished in 46:25. Local vet Esme Wilson was next home in 50:01very pleased that she could maintain her pace despite the hills. John Burgess had managed to lead Esme up the first hill and kept her in sight for the next mile but lost her on a long ascent. He managed to pick up his effort towards the finish and came in 50:47. Finally Brent Dicks, who only decided to do the event at the last minute and who doesn't like going uphill, took advantage of his sprinting speed on the downhill finish to overtake lots of other runners, and came home with a flourish in 55:20. The race was won by Ben Broyd in the excellent time of 37:07. Bring back the OSM 10K PLEASE!

Honiton Running Club had a good turnout for the second running of Beer Primary School’s Beer Blazer on Sunday, 12th May. This is dubbed as a mini-Grizzly as part of the route goes along Branscombe Beech and up the Stairway to Heaven just like the Grizzly. Fortunately, for the runners, the race is a lot shorter at only 6 miles.

Tim Lenton of Axe Valley Runners won the race in 39 minutes 25 seconds with new Honiton RC runner Chris Entwistle first back for Honiton in 12th place and a time of 45:56. Steve Davey was next back in 19th place in 48:38 and another new runner for Honiton, Alistair Moffett, finished in 21st place in 49:03. Rod Inglis had a great race finishing 24th in 49:23 and Richard Harris is getting his fitness back coming 24th in 49:56. Howard Bidmead has suffered with injury recently and although he slowed down considerably mid race he managed to finish in the respectable position of 41st in 53:27. There were several changes in positions of the next two runners in for Honiton but Mark Andow managed to overtake Judy Davey just a few hundred metres from the line. Mark finished in 53:38 and 44th place with Judy just 14 seconds and one place later. John Burgess also managed to get ahead of Judy during the race but the beach and the hill took its toll and he finished in 53rd place in 55:19. He was followed one place and 8 seconds later by Steve Briggs. This is the first race that Pippa Westall has run for over a year and she definitely picked a tough one. She came 64th in 58:40. There were 94 finishers.

On the same day, Stephen Boyes took part in the Waendel Walk in Wellingborough which is about the length of a marathon - 26 miles. Steve had taken his dog, Marly, with him and after getting lost a couple of times, he guessed he had run more like 30 miles. He came first finishing in 4 hours 51 minutes – but then he was the only participant who ran! A great warm up for The Forces March this week – 5 marathons in 5 days!

Three Honiton runners took part in the 100% off road Killerton 10k around the grounds of Killerton Estate. Tom Bornet was first back in 51:11 in 19th place. This was Julie Payne’s first race for months but she did brilliantly finishing as 3rd lady in 29th place overall in 54:45. Nick Thorpe was pleased to finish under the hour coming 59th in 59:44. There were 191 runners.

Honiton Running Club representatives John Burgess, Judy Davey and Roger Saunders attended the Devon Sports Awards 2013 presentation at Sandy Park, Exeter last Friday evening. HRC was nominated under the category of Amateur Club of the Year and was invited to the awards evening as a finalist. The winner of the category was Kingsley School Judo Club with HRC and Barton Cricket Club runners up. Over 200 people attended the evening which saw Olympic diver Tom Daly reach the final in the Sports Performer of the Year category. He was runner up along with Jay Thompson with the winner being Olympic swimming gold medallist Ruta Meilutyte. The evening was hosted by BBC Spotlight’s Jenny Walrond and Jimmy Frost who rode Little Polveir to victory in the Grand National in 1989 was guest speaker.