On the weekend of 20/21 January, several Trotters took part in one of the Plym Trail events, organised by super-friendly firstandlastrunning. Both days had half marathon and marathon events, and are held on the Plym Trail that was formerly an historic railway.

Day 1 happened to be the morning of the Trotters Awards night, and saw a large group in attendance. Sally Ingledew, Lucy Payne, Lucy Evans, Graydon Widdicombe, Sue Tremlett, Peter Blakesley, Bon Rymel, Richard Keatley and Rod Payne.

Lucy Evans and Sue Tremlett both secured PBs on a course that is quite a tough one, with the last few miles up a steady inline, and their times were 4:04:54 and 4:26:59 respectively.

Full marathon results were Graydon Widdicombe (4:02:50), Lucy Evans (4:04:54, PB, 3^rd lady), Sue Tremlett (4:26:59, 24-min PB), Sally Ingledew (4:33:55), Richard Keatley (4:56:00). Half Marathon results were Peter Blakesley (1:50:34), Bon Rymel (1:52:50), Lucy Payne (2:10:15), Rod Payne (2:24:50).

Day 2 saw two Trotters in attendance, with Lance Mason finishing in second place in a time of 3:23:33 and Allen Taylor claiming fourth in 3:33:43. Lance commented that the pair both struggled a bit on the day, as they couldn’t get into a rhythm at all (a dog ran across their path at one point), but still finished in very respectable times.

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Mark Wotton did Braunton 10k on Sunday 21st Janaury. The race starts at Braunton Arena and takes in country lanes with a couple of very steep hills. This year was particularly wet with heavy rain from the start, which resulted in lots of very large puddles especially in the second half of the race, with the water being knee deep in places. It’s a great event though, with the race finishing on the running track.

Mark’s time was 58:22 and he finished in 69th place out of 140 finishers.

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Sue Tremlett ran Blackdown Beast on Saturday 27^th January, which is a tough, muddy and mainly hilly off-road event organised by Honiton RC. The event organiser had said that it was the worst conditions that he’d seen for 10 years, and in fact a great deal of the route wasn’t really runnable. There are 16ish and 10ish mile options, and Sue and her friends eventually decided to stop at the 10-mile option, which being a week after Plym Trail Marathon, Sue was okay with as she's well on her way to her 100-mile target for January.