Mercia Fell Runners Club

At last! Ten years since the first running of this race, the route’s ‘Slithery Hill’ finally came in to its own. As the race is traditionally held on the first Wednesday evening in May, the short steepish clay slope through the woodland at Bannister’s Coppice tends to have already become baked solid for the summer. This leaves puzzled runners enquiring ‘what slithery hill?’

Due to the deluge of recent days however, the course was more akin to its January/February status, with mud and surface water in plentiful supply throughout. Alistair’s photographs (fellrunningpictures.co.uk) provide testament to the latter, and the generally much slower times reflect the former.

Still, there didn’t seem to be any complaints from competitors afterwards, despite being used to making their way round bathed in dappled sunlight amongst the woodland wild flowers.

Hats off to Robin Sedman–Smith, who not only won by showing a clean pair of heels to the rest of the field, he also appeared at the finish with a remarkably clean set of legs too. His time of 20.52 was a couple of minutes shy of his previous race winning times at Sheinton.

Robin was closely followed by Arthur Charlesworth, who whilst registered as an under 16, I understand has a couple of years to go before reaching that age, making this an outstanding display of youth and potential. Third overall and first lady in 21.33 was Claire Martin, making her debut at the Steeplechase. A time like this in these conditions had me reaching for the record books, which suggested that had we had better weather, Amanda Wright’s course record from 2005 of 21.00 may have fallen.

As all of our prizes are donated by Sheinton residents, we had enough to go round winners and runners up in all categories, which meant that about a third of all entrants, left with a wider smile on their faces. (If Tim Jones & Dave Hopkins give me a nudge at some point, they can have their prizes too)

I had some great help from family, villagers Michael & Karen (and family) and stalwarts Dave Nichols, Rick Robson & Charlie & Jill Leventon.

A great night, but perhaps a few more yellow Mercia vests in the ranks next year?

Grahame Hughes
3 May 2012