(left click on photos to enlarge them and left click again for full size)

For those of you who have never been over to Seaton, Beer and Branscombe to see the Grizzly and Cub runs organised by Axe Valley Runners, with about 2000 runners from all over the UK, Europe and beyond, you have missed a real treat. The weather this year was warm, sunny and dry, although one could hardly describe the terrain as dry.

Runners have bogs to wade through, hills to climb, beaches to tackle and tracks in woods which were also muddy. However, the atmosphere is absolutely unique. There are nearly 200 marshals positioned around the 20 mile course along with 10 water stations. Runners always comment on the positive and encouraging support of our many marshals. This year there were 27 people from the Umborne Valley involved, mostly near Elverway Farm and Gays Farm.

Other organisations such as Little Acorns of Shute School were also involved. We had one local runner – doing her 17th Grizzly was Eleanor Wood who finished in a time of 3 hours 21minutes – and she enjoyed it!

Taking into account age and sex (graded times) she would have finished 22nd out of 1546 runners! Keep on running girl !

 

Particular thanks to John Pearce for organising a group of 10 and then wading into a slurry field to help runners in distress, losing their trainers ( they were all female!)

Each group who helps with the event receives a donation towards their charity, club or organisation – the presentation evening is on the 25th of April when we hope our village hall in Umborne will receive a generous sum! Thank you so much to all those locals who helped in any way with this prestigious event.