Three Musketeers attended the new races – the Exeter Leukaemia Fund women’s 5k and men and women’s 10k at Bicton, near Exmouth.
Neil, Guy and Caroline had been kept waiting since before Christmas for this race when it was postponed due to the snowy weather until Saturday 22nd January.
However, the races were worth the wait. Caroline, in only her second race after the Plymouth January Jaunt through Saltram, was very pleased with her race and enjoyed it highly. She came 18th out of 61 finishers in 32min 37s – the winner finished in 18 min.
Neil was also very pleased with fantastic place (23rd out of 123 finishers) and his time at 50.37, (only three minutes or so slower than his January Jaunt time) – the winner finished in 40.29.
Both the 5lk and 10k race routes were trail races with a mixture of road and woodland and open tracks. The 5km had more road sections and the 10k only small sections of road.
The 10k would be familiar to those who have completed the infamous longer Bicton Blister race in the same area, but not as challenging.
All three of us would recommend more Musketeers take part as it is easy to get to, takes less than an hour to reach and is a pleasure to run.
We all said we were enjoyably distracted from the heat of competition by the scenery. Although many runners are not attracted to off-road races, these races do have the advantage of seeming to speed by faster than road races. This is because of the need to pay close attention to where you place your feet and to avoid tripping and to go in the right direction and due to the attractive rural scenery.
Running coaches also recommend taking part because they strengthen many parts of your body, legs and stomach, due to the need to keep a balance and for the ever-changing terrain and extra effort for harder surfaces such as mud or streams, stones and even crops!
By Guy