On Good Friday six Sidmouth runners headed out to Kilmington to celebrate an extra days holiday by running the Kilmington Kanter, billed as seven-miles’ish, off-road with two main hills, writes Sarah Brown.

Despite being very cold and windy, the sun did make an appearance and it was a beautiful morning to be running around the East Devon countryside.

Jake Welsh ran in the 2.5 mile fun run, which initially followed the same long uphill drag as the main race.

He finished in a very good time of 23:52, and luckily got a lift home rather than having to wait in the freezing cold for his dad to finish the main race!

The race started with a mile uphill on road, before winding into Kilmington woods where the course got very steep and muddy.

It was at this point that the fun run split off, and the main races became very spread out, as the faster runners, like our own Milan Goc, had sprinted up the hill and were miles ahead. The race then headed through Shute and into Umbourne, where runners were greeted by some girls in a field telling us to ‘mind the bog’. Covered knee deep in mud from mile three onwards did not make the rest of the race an overly happy one, particularly as it was almost entirely uphill from then onwards.

There was a final very steep uphill into Shute Woods, which had almost all runners walking, before the last mile downhill to the finish, just as treacherous due to the loose surface and mud!

Milan did well to come in fifth place for Sidmouth in a very strong field, finishing in a time of 47:37.

Colin Flood was the next Sidmouth runner home, after running the first three miles with Sarah Brown, he was more experienced at running through bogs than her, having done the Grizzly before, and therefore finished strongly in a time of one hour and four minutes. Sarah came in a few minutes later, after wasting a bit of time on the way discussing with the race director whether such a muddy, hilly race was good training for the marathon (it wasn’t!). John Podmore and David Welsh ran in together in one hour 14 minutes.

John has been out of running for a few months, so it was a good result for him to be able to complete the race, and David is a regular race runner for the club who rarely gets a mention! It is a little baffling as to which route John and David ran however, as whilst Colin and Sarah were covered in mud, John’s shoes were nearly spotless, and he claims there was a piece of corrugated iron that he walked over instead of going through the bog!

A lovely local race finished off with a hot cross bun and a cup of coffee, and all runners feeling they had definitely earned their Easter eggs!

Milan then went on to complete the Easter double by taking third place in the Bampton to Tiverton Road Race on Easter Monday morning.