Last weekend the Bicton Blister 10-miler over Woodbury Common was full of surprises. First of all, the fact that it wasn’t rained off and then the course itself was reasonably dry, relatively so anyway. Only a short diversion was required and that was before the race entered Woodbury Common proper, writes John Perratt.

The next surprise was the large number of our runners who had only the week before tackled the similar distance at Castle Drogo and full credit must be given to them for that.

Finally we were pleasantly surprised to see a few runners that we had either not seen racing before or who have been off the scene for a long time.

In that category we had Laurence Bolam who, after an injury enforced absence, showed that he had lost none of his speed and finished just outside the medals in the dreaded fourth place. Also having a good run was Naomi Garrick who was our second club runner home, fresh from her appearance on the pages of this month’s Runners World. Squeezed between the two of them were Simon Minting, whom we last saw racing around the Exeter track several years ago, and Jim Pyne, who has been in training recently checking out the Reindeer course for this weekend.

John Keast maintains his good form and was the first member of the ‘Drogo Club’ to finish with Debbie Marriot taking the same honour amongst the ladies. Ian Robson forsook his Sunday morning ride to show that he can still run and just edged out Andy Shearer at the finish. There is also a shorter ‘Bicton Lite’ five-miler for those who prefer that distance and it was great to see father and son, Nick and Charlie Smith, cross the line together. Nick is an old hand at this sort of race but 15-year-old Charlie is learning the ropes and getting very quick these days. Making her debut, based on very little training, was Tania Marriott and we welcome her to the running fraternity .

The best surprise of the day though was to see Jess Tubbs running again. She had problems at the Grizzly last year and it is heart warming to see her in the results again.

Times and positions for local runners were:

Bicton Blister: Laurence Bolam 1.06.38 (4); Simon Minting 1.11.49 (16); Jim Pyne 1.19.48 (44); Naomi Garrick 1.29.49 (110); John Keast 1.30.45 (116); Ian Robson 1.39.32 (209); Andy Shearer 1.43.06 (251); Debbie Marriott 1.46.26 (271); George Chalstrey 1.48.39 (290); Trudy Lestor 1.48.40 (291); Becky Robson 1.48.49 (293); Ray Lewis 1.48.53 (294); Cathy Keast 1.49.58 (304); John Doherty 1.50.24 (306); Terry Bewes 1.54.13 (338); Claire Godbeer 1.55.14 (337); Don Cawthera 1.55.14 (341); Helen Palmer 1.57.48 (354) Bicton Lite: Nick Smith 37.44 (12); Charlie Smith; 37.44 (13); Brian Gosling 46.34 (37); Tania Marriott 49.07 (44); Jess Tubbs 51.18 (53).