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An unlikely warm Saturday afternoon greeted Cheddar runners for the Charmouth Challenge, an 8.25-mile multi-terrain course containing several severe hills including the legendary gold cap.

The fun run was contested with Kayley, Danny and Caroline (Kayley and Danny's mum!) all running. All did extremely well in the heat and first home was Kayley in a time of 21:36. She managed to finish 1st in her class but was slightly disappointed not to beat her Mendip AC rival Rebecca Carver as she did in the Somerset County trials. Danny wasn't far behind in a time of 23:44, finishing 3rd in his age group. Finally Caroline finished her very first race in a time of 30:36. Caroline couldn't have chosen a tougher first race!

In the main race Cheddar started strongly with Pete, Ed and Roger holding their own with top 30 positions. But within the first mile Ed broke away from Pete and Roger up the first major hill.  After three miles, Ed was beginning to find the asthma, heat and pollen and the shear toughness of the course taking its toll and lost several places and time. Just before the 5-mile mark Roger took over Ed on a downward section and was leading for Cheddar. With the offer of jelly babies at the 5 mile water station Ed began to come back at Roger and at the next hill opened up a good lead on him. This was short lived and with the large decent and only half a mile before the finish Roger regained the lead once more. It was just a short climb and nervous finish for Roger Griffiths but he did enough to come in first for Cheddar in 32nd position with a time of 1:04:04. Ed Willingham finished two places after in 34th position in a time of 1:04:07. Pete Hicks finish in 44th position in a time of 1:06:01 followed by his younger brother Andy Hicks in 66th position in a time of 1:10:01. These first four Cheddar runners made up the Cheddar Men's Team which finished 8th position overall, only 4 minutes behind Weston AC in 6th place. The other finishing Cheddar runner's results were:

Richard Llwellyn 1:16:02 114th
Dawn Drake-Brockman 1:22:36 154th
Marc Bostock 1:23:47 160th

This was well supported by Cheddar runners and it is hoped that next year's event will attract even more Cheddar runners to the race and weekend away.

Full results can be found at: http://www.charmouth.dorset.sch.uk/challenge/Challenge2007/results_page.htm

On a really wet early Sunday morning in June, Ed Willingham completed in the Torbay Half Marathon. With the weather in his favour he was able to comfortably run the first ten miles in a personal best time of 65 minutes, with the first 2 miles clocking in at a "too fast" 11 minutes and 50 seconds. If he could keep the pace, surely a time of 85 minutes was possible? However the last three miles proved to be too tough to slip under 1:25 and he had to settle for a new PB of 1:26:40. Ed will now look forward to another day in October, possibly Cardiff Half Marathon, to set an even better PB!!!

Both Kayley and Danny Kennedy ran the fun run with Kayley finishing second girl and sixth overall. Danny had a very respectable race and finished in the top 20.