Arlington Court Canter

Whilst Charlie faced the ordeal of pounding the streets of London with the masses, Martin and I headed south west to canter round the leafy lanes of North Devon. The Arlington Court Canter (which I last did in 2003) is usually a 10k but in this, its 13th anniversary year, an extra loop had been included to bring the distance up to.........13k.

The gardens and grounds of the National Trust property, Arlington Court, make a stunning backdrop to this, almost entirely off road run. The race is started by the estate coachman, authentically attired, blowing his impressive coaching horn (or whatever they call them).

The start was a bit of a cavalry charge down the narrow manicured paths of the garden, but soon turned off into the parkland where there was plenty of room for the field to spread out. A loop round the bottom of the field where we had parked followed and then we headed out of the grounds and down a wide path into the woods. At the bottom we ran alongside a small lake and were then directed onto the “new” part of the course, which the organiser had kindly warned us was “vertical”!! Actually it wasn’t too bad as the path did zig-zag but it was still quite an impressive climb until we finally emerged from the trees to cross a couple of fields and then drop back down, almost precisely to the point by the lake where we had been diverted.

The remainder of the race followed the usual course, parts of which I remembered from previous visits, although there seemed to be a lot more uphill than I recalled. Most of the tracks were through woodland, although we did pass through a few fields en route too. We were expecting the race to be about 8 miles or slightly more, but as I neared what I thought from memory was the final stage of the race I still only had just over 6 miles on the Garmin. I was finding the whole race a bit of a struggle, we don’t do many short races these days and I had got a bit carried away at the start galloping madly in pursuit of Martin (who managed to disappear from my view before we even left the grounds!).

I finally made it to the top of the last hill and back into the grounds of Arlington Court for the finish along pleasant paths through the garden, swerving madly to miss meandering tourists who were clearly a bit bewildered to be confronted with rather a lot of sweaty runners. I managed a bit of a sprint for the line to finish in 59.51, total distance according to the Garmin 7.4 miles. I was quite pleased with that until I discovered that Martin had managed to beat me by just over 5 minutes! Despite this he had only managed 3rd Vet 50 in what was a very competitive field – the first V55 was actually fifth overall.

As for me, I literally aged 10 years overnight. On Saturday I was a happy Vet 35 but Sunday saw me on day 1 of being a V45. I can’t believe I’m that old!! No comments from the gallery please! I celebrated my birthday by picking up the first V45 prize, but actually having finished 4th lady overall I also beat the first V35 and first V40 which made me feel a lot better (but still very old!).

And Martin said: Not much more I can add really. There were easter eggs handed out at the finish which was nice, if a little incongruous. Alex chose to pass up the fun run in favour of doing his homework in the car, and didn't emerge till after the race was over to help me dispose of my easter egg.