ON Sunday, Chard Road Runners began their Nominated race Club Championship, with a short trip to Axmouth for the self named Axmouth Challenge.

This mixed terrain nine mile race saw CRR’s Jeremy Taylor, Martin Holley, Hannah Grinter, Elizabeth Cox, Helen Baxter, Nicky Smith and Richard Lewis on the start line, Richard entered in the 5 mile option for this race.

With the wind buffeting the course runners were facing a real double challenge as the start see’s runners climb half a mile of steep hill.

Both races setting off together CRR’s Martin Holley and Jeremy Taylor pushed hard towards the front of the pack to enable them to set their own pace as the pack spread out and headed towards the first pinch point of a stile and then steep narrow downhill section.

Helen and Hannah were next to show and in this early section of the race were evenly paced and spent the early part of race with Hannah showing stronger on the hills, with Elizabeth and Nicky settling well into the race.

Richard, in the five mile challenge was steaming through the pack of longer distance runners and heading towards the front of the pack.

With the last downhill of the 9 mile challenge it was Martin Holley who came in for CRR’s first crossing the line in 1h 09m, next was Jeremy Taylor crossing in 1h 16m.

The battling Helen finally pulled ahead down the last slope towards the finish and crossed the line in 1h 34m 00s with Hannah crossing in 1h 34m 30s.

Lizzie was the next CRR heading in and crossing ahead of her 2 hour target in a time of 1h 52m, Nicky held on resolutely and came in with an amazing finish in 2h 05m.