Hundreds of runners, young and old, took to the roads round West Shepton on Sunday 2nd October to take part in the town’s popular Fun Run.  Organisers were amazed at the increased numbers taking part, despite record temperatures!  There were so many winners that organisers ran out of medals.

Proceedings started with Everybody Bootcamp Director Kieran Tomes leading a warm-up session.  Aidan Winney, from Sheppey Valley CLP (Community Learning Partnership) promoting Respect and fair play in sport, started the first race, the children’s 1km, accompanied by Ashleigh Lock and staff from the Leisure Centre and their mascot bear.  Bowlish Infants School was the winning school and will be presented with a cheque for £50 by teacher, Rachel Wray, one of the organisers.  Alex Williams won the race overall (U13) from Wells Blue and leading girl was Elise Thorner (U11) from High Ham.

The 5km race was won by Wells City Harriers, Curtis Stevens (age 15) in 17: 37 and Abbie Gibbons, 1^st Female (age 14) in 21:26, both from Shepton Mallet, 1^st Local Male was James Cowley in 18:54.

In the more popular 10km race – overall winner was Nathan Young from Shepton, representing Bristol and West AC, in a time of 33:53, 1^st Female Laura Parker, Wells City Harriers 40:20, 1^st Local Male: David Rochester 40: 59 and 1^st Local Female Dawn Holley 42:50.

Dawn also helped Paul Nicholls Racing to sweep the board with the team prizes for the 5km and 10km, beating local running clubs Wells City Harriers, Somer AC, Frome and Yeovil.  Several local families were running, including regular participants, the Williams and Clarke families, and this year - three generations from the Dukes family:  Grandad Mike, from Southampton aged 64, joining son Tom and his wife Julia and their sons Dylan aged 10 and Owen aged 4 from Pilton.

The oldest competitor was 79 year old Harry Moore from Axe Valley Runners, competing in his 1100th race.  Janet Reilly, 1^st local female in the 5km spoke on behalf of the runners, ‘It was well organised and the turnout was fantastic.  I hope the event made a lot of money for local charities’.

The organisers would like to thank Framptons for sponsoring Jeff Body’s sheep trophies,  Tesco’s for supplying much needed water, Wells Reclamation for the race numbers, Brothers Drinks for the cider team prizes, and Lizzie Elliot for making hand-painted ceramics awarded to children and adults, the Scouts for providing refreshments, the Carnival Committee for setting up the road closure, the Army Cadets and all the individual volunteers from Shepton, Wells City Harriers and Mendip Hills Hash House Harriers who helped to make it one of the best years yet for Race Director, Sue Cook, who is standing down after more than 10 years of involvement in the Fun Run. ‘I’ve seen it grow from a modest number of runners in one race to hundreds taking part over 3 races – it’s been great to see so many people coming together from the community to take part, but the success of the Fun Run relies as usual on the hard work of a small and willing band of volunteers.  I hope others will now come forward to support the event in future.’