Sidmouth runners enjoy the 2020 Exmouth 10k - a race reduced in number size owing to Coivd-19

The Bradleys Exmouth 10k was organised as a socially distancing race by Lizzie Maine, writes Hamish Spence.

Due to Covid 19, the number of competitors had been reduced from 600 to 200 with 129 actually competing on the day.

Also, there was no race briefing at the start of the race as it had already been sent to all runners prior to race day.

This meant there was no hanging about at the start, which is normally in the wet or cold. Instead it was line up by a social distanced and projected time and off you went.

The course is a flat route starting from opposite Ocean Bowling on Carlton Hill slipway (where the park run starts).

It proceeds along the seafront to Orcombe Point where it turned and headed back along the seafront, to near the slipway at the docks, here it turned and repeated. The race finished at the same place it started.

Because of what is going on with the various last minute government guidelines this was not a measured 10k, the actual distance was 10.25k.

It was Kate Marriott’s first ever 10k and she arrived back in a good time of 48:39 and Deb Marriott flew in in shortly after in 53:14.

Adrian Horne finished 69th in 54:38 and David Welsh crossed the line in 1:02:13 just beating Terry Bewes who had not run this distance since the beginning of the year.

Terry had set himself a generous time goal of 1:10:00, so was very pleased to finish in 1:02:34 to take second place in his age group.