Bicton Blister

A very cold morning last Sunday found Richard and I at Bicton in East Devon. We were there for an off-road race of approximately 11 miles. The start has been moved half a mile down from the College to the Arena. This wasn’t a positive move as far as I was concerned as instead of a warm hall, registration area and showers, we now had an outdoor toilet block with showers attached, and a large marquee for everything else. The race itself went well enough. It was very cold and I saw very few who were brave enough to run in only a running vest (and shorts of course!). I had my coat, hat, gloves and wrist-warmers, and the gloves only came off briefly. The course was almost entirely off road, with mainly forest tracks, and a very exposed bit through a quarry, and a long grassy section at the beginning, and we re-traced our steps there at the end. Only two very small streams, which were almost small enough to jump over, and one or two boggy bits. Nowhere near as wet as the route I remember from two years ago. Richard finished well ahead of me as expected in a time of 1:28:46 and I managed a meagre 1:48:09 although I did overtake at least five runners in the last mile. Closer inspection of the results has just revealed another Maiden Newton Runner: Charlie Bladon who finished in 1:50:05.

Saw a few familiar faces while warming up, but as the warmest place after the race was in the car, there wasn’t much socialising. Needless to say, no trophies to take home. And even if we had deserved one, they weren’t there as they had been stolen from the organiser’s car on the previous day.