The two Pauls star

Athletes from Haywards Heath Harriers and Burgess Hill Runners were out in force over the weekend.

On Sunday it was the first West Sussex Fun Run of the new year after the Hangover Five was called off on New Year’s Day because of flooded fields.

Conditions were not that much better for the Worthing Lido 4-miler as there was driving rain and wind but it still drew a big entry of more than 540 runners.

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First of the local finishers was Harriers’ Paul Cousins in a provisional seventh place, while Darryl Webb led the 37-strong BHR group home in 23.59 for an excellent 10th place.

Following Webb were his team-mates James Sorbie (26.37), Alan Fry (27.22), Simon Alexander (27.27), Andy Sayers (27.33) and a back-in-form Andrew Bishop (27.37).

The ladies were led home by Sally Symes (32.05), Sue Lyle (33.30), Emma Fernandez (34.12), Jean Leak (34.13) and Marie Carey (34.15).

It was also great to see Dave Borley make a return to racing after a very long injury-enforced break.

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This Sunday sees the second race in the series, the short Valentines Race organised by Horsham Joggers.

Back to Worthing and Harriers’ impressive V50 Mark Davies was delighted to be coming back to form with a 24th finish in 24.41.

He was followed by clubmates Jack Chivers, a pleasing 30th with 25.28, Jon Kennedy 37th in 25.57, Julian Boyer 56th in 26.43, Cliff Comber 61st in 27.08 and Carl Bicknell 68th in 27.25,

First Harrier lady back was Margaret Hollamby in 28.43 followed by Alan Thomas 29.167, Mark Styles 31.08, Steve Horn 32.19, Abigail Redd 33.00, Linda Tullett 33.56, Richard Bates 34.49, Natalie Chivers 36.40 and Irene Parsley 37.17.

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Two young Harriers were among the 50 junior starters and the atrocious conditions failed to deter eight-year-old Meadow Davies as she finished 25th with 8.25 in the mile race.

Her three-year-old sister Jemimah completed her tough mile in an impressive 10.59.

Sunday also saw the inaugural Dark Star River Marathon along the muddy banks of the river Adur.

The event, organised by Sussex Trail Events, started and finished at the Sea Scout centre in Shoreham and followed a route along the river up to Southwater, passing race sponsors Dark Star Brewery at Partridge Green before turning round and heading back.

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Although dry at the start, the weather quickly deteriorated, leading to horrendous conditions for the small field of 55 runners, particularly on the return leg which was into the worst of the wind and rain.

This did not seem to affect BHR member Paul Sargent, appropriately wearing race No 1 as he produced a quite sensational performance in the conditions to win in 3hrs 46 mins 38 seconds, some 18 minutes ahead of the second placed runner.

The club was well represented on the day, with Jon Boxall 13th in 4.41.32 and Neil Dawson (in his first ultra distance race) clocking 6.03.12 to finish just ahead of Jan Lavis in 6.05.38.

Pictured above are BHR’s hardy quartet of (from the left) Jon Boxall, Jan Lavis, Neil Dawson and runaway winner Paul Sargent.

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