The Bishop Fleming Great West Run is Devon's biggest race. This year's 39th celebration of running took place on Sunday 26 May and was based at Exeter Arena Exhibition Field with more than 2,500 finishers in the two main events.

The Great West Run Half Marathon started at 9:00am and the part urban, part rural route took runners through the city, past the University of Exeter, into the countryside beside the River Exe before returning for a grandstand finish at Exeter Arena. The half marathon is followed by the recently introduced Moki Community Mile and then the Great West Run 10K gets underway at 9:40am, utilising the first and last three miles of the half marathon route.

Despite the simultaneous timing of both races, the experienced organisers from WMP Creative have created a smooth running event, as described by Exmouth Harrier Tom Packer on social media: "Today was a good example of exactly how an event should be run, the route was well thought out and worked well with the 10K running concurrently. The baggage drop off was straightforward, no queues for urinals and a decent medal, t-shirt, and freebie bag."

Tom finished 65th in the half marathon (1:27:03) and was among 105 runners inside 90 minutes on this testing course. The top three men were Joshua Benford (Bideford AAC, 1:09:07), Simon Fox (Exeter Harriers, 1:10:38) and Richard Waldron (Southampton AC, 1:13:08).

The leading women in the longer race were W35 Anna Harrold (Truro RC, 1:19:28), W40 Ruby Orchard (Cornwall AC, 1:27:18) and W40 Hollie Fitzgerald (Run Fit Run Fast, 1:27:44). There were 2,107 finishers in just over three hours.

There were clear winners in the 10K race. Jamie MacDonald (Tonbridge AC, 32:14) had 36 seconds in hand and Mille Porter (Exeter University AC, 36:39) was nearly four minutes clear as she finished ninth overall to claim the women's top prize. There were 455 finishers in 2:16:07.

This short event video captures the race day atmosphere...

Results and last year's race report are at the runABC South race listing here.

Photo courtesy The Great West Run on Facebook