One of the toughest cross country races in Devon was conquered by the intrepid Musketeers.
Neil W, Caroline W, Maggie L, Guy B, Mark P and Nicole B, are all to be congratulated for completing impressively surviving a rugged race.
Although listed as 7.5 miles, it was nearer 8 miles and feels more like 10 miles. The route took us up hill nearly all the way to the top of the immense hill towering over Ivybridge.
The gradient increased the nearer to the top we got and so does the heart beat.
The terrain varied between road at one extreme to soggy moorland, narrow woodland paths and a very precarious stony track which looked like a dry river bed. In between was a stream and muddy paths. Even the steep down hill was tricky and the road approaching the finish was also designed to trip us up with speed humps.
Neil appears to be improving through his iron man attitude to his marathon training and raced the route, despite insisting beforehand he was merely using it as a steady training run. Mark did an impression of a diving diva, throwing himself in front of an innocent family and then demanding sympathy at the end with a bleeding knee. Nicole regretted getting out of bed at all on a Sunday just to suffer. While Maggie let us all down by missing out on an age group prize. The only sensible one among us was Caroline who is on course with her marathon training and a steady non-diva-like race looking cool as a cucumber.
By Guy