My Event Ratings

Overall score		100%
Would you do it again?		Yes
Details:
Scenery		100%
PB potential		80%
Atmosphere		100%
Organisation		100%
Value		80%
Beginner-friendliness		60%

In short: This time I brought friends and more money!
In full: The route was way stickier than last year and mile 9 through the Somme-like mud could finish a less greedy person but my eye was on the main prize CAKE! Whoever made the lemon curd-filled victoria sponge was a genius and the fruit cake was scrumptious too! I brought along a couple of friends who loved it and now know that I am not exaggerating the hills and the hospitality. Whilst in the loo queue - long, chatty and preferable to waiting out in the wind - I noticed that the Milton Lilbourne WI is closing - this is a travesty and cannot happen! The village will starve and who will take such good care of us next year? Once again a fantastic race - worth hauling over from Bristol on a soggy Sunday and I had genuinely forgotten just how tough it is - Vale of Pewsey runners you just get better!
Date of review: January 16, 2006

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Overall score		100%
Would you do it again?		Yes
Details:
Scenery		100%
PB potential		80%
Atmosphere		100%
Organisation		100%
Value		100%
Beginner-friendliness		60%

In short: So long and thanks for the chocolate Hobnobs!
In full: This race improves each year - somehow it didn't seem quite as far this time out but that could just be me getting quicker. Lovely location, lovely marshals, lovely hills and lovely, lovely loads of mud. Thanks to a keen-eyed marshal, I was able to finish and collect my spot prize of chocolate biccies - they've all gone now but everyone really appreciated them on the journey back home!
Long may the full monty continue as a freakishly weather-blessed pre-Christmas canter - you're all marvellous!
Date of review: December 4, 2005

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Overall score		80%
Would you do it again?		Yes
Details:
Scenery		80%
PB potential		60%
Atmosphere		80%
Organisation		80%
Value		100%
Beginner-friendliness		80%

In short: This could feasibly be renamed "The Silage Shuffle"
In full: Two weeks on and my trail shoes are banished to the garage their pong is so bad as a result of this chilly canter! The course is a very generous 8.5 miles mostly through cowpats which were uncannily viscous. The combination of several cold dunkings and one lengthy wait in freezing water followed by an icy blast of hosepipe meant that despite running over what felt like sticky toffee pudding all morning my legs were not sore at all - Either that means I didn't try hard enough or it could mean the organisers really DID think of everything - obviously I'm with the organisers on this one!
The t-shirt was lovely and very welcome to keep the chill out whilst I gobbled my KitKat - I'm sure they never used to taste that good.
Back for more next year but please, please sort out the whole ditch situation so some of us don't stand freezing for ten minutes whilst others blatantly cheat along the bank - thanks.
Date of review: November 28, 2005

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Overall score		100%
Would you do it again?		Yes
Details:
Scenery		100%
PB potential		80%
Atmosphere		100%
Organisation		80%
Value		80%
Beginner-friendliness		60%

In short: It just gets more gorgeous each year!
In full: Only a week to go until this year's race and I realised I hadn't rated last year's effort. The setting is superb and you make your way to the start inhaling the evocative smell of the National Trust gift shop - anyone who spent their formative years being whizzed through these places will know what I mean - the combined chocolate and rose soap scent start the day nicely and make a pleasant change from linament!
This is the race with just the best atmosphere of the year - it's a combination of the location, the proximity to Christmas, the sneaky (big) hills and joy of the bar at the halfway mark. It is the only race I know of where it is possible to have a pint of Guinness and a hot mince pie at the 5 mile mark - not that I've tried!
I love this race, the kids love playing in the gardens, my husband loves the view and it's got the best finish lnie ever!
Date of review: November 28, 2005

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Overall score		100%
Would you do it again?		Yes
Details:
Scenery		100%
PB potential		40%
Atmosphere		100%
Organisation		100%
Value		100%
Beginner-friendliness		40%

In short: Could this be the best cross country ever?
In full: Where to start with the plaudits? The organisation was exceptional, the marshals the most encouraging I have ever come across, the scenery superb, the course a true challenge (and this is from the woman who will throw herself around plenty of muddy courses on a Sunday morning and thought she knew what tough was until yesterday!), the t-shirt fabulous and the cake selection so impressive I had to keep going back for more!
I am singing the praises of this challenge to anyone who will listen because it was utterly fantastic. Minehead running club certainly know how to lay on a great race and deserve every ounce of praise for a truly memorable morning - thank you!
Date of review: October 24, 2005

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Overall score		80%
Would you do it again?		Yes
Details:
Scenery		60%
PB potential		80%
Atmosphere		80%
Organisation		80%
Value		60%
Beginner-friendliness		80%

In short: Where was the chocolate?
In full: Okay, so I live in Bristol and could feasibly have dashed home for my chocolate fix but the goody bag was obviously having a lean year! I must be getting blase when I don't notice the weather, cobbles (harsh Bristol city council, most harsh!) or cracking organisation. I did however notice the medal - what a corker! This was my fourth Bristol and the medals are getting bigger each year, it's only a matter of time before we all receive souvenir painted manhole covers! It was a good Sunday trot out with plenty of company and refreshment but Bristol want to take a tip from Bath and have a big stack of mint Aeros just the other side of the finish line then course records would be broken!
Date of review: October 3, 2005

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Overall score		80%
Would you do it again?		Yes
Details:
Scenery		100%
PB potential		80%
Atmosphere		80%
Organisation		100%
Value		100%
Beginner-friendliness		60%

In short: Oh I do like to be beside the seaside!
In full: Plymouth never disappoints, the atmosphere is fantastic, the support superb and the goody bag stuffed - and I say that as someone who had a dreadful race this year with heat, dehydration and Lucozade combining for an unforgettable experience for all the wrong reasons!
The truly marvellous thing about Plymouth though has to be the finish. You've just puffed up the Citadel and rounded the corner on to the Hoe to be greeted by the most stunning views of Plymouth Sound and the deafening roar of the crowd; as you cross the line you are quickly funelled into the athletes exclusion zone where regardless of your finish time you are treated like an elite with a fantastic array of refreshments and the chance to soak up the glorious views whilst deciding what to eat first. There is also the added bonus that if you can get close enough you can sit in comfort chomping your pasty whilst watching all the other poor sods slogging up the hill - there is no better feeling!
Date of review: June 6, 2005

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Overall score		100%
Would you do it again?		Yes
Details:
Scenery		100%
PB potential		40%
Atmosphere		100%
Organisation		80%
Value		100%
Beginner-friendliness		40%

In short: Where's the ski lift?
In full: Blimey! When they said hills they weren't kidding - Giants Grave was truly a hands and knees job - even the nimblest mountain goat would struggle! Brilliant route, stunning scenery, freakishly lovely weather, totally wrecked trainers and a cake table to die for - it was huge! I had no idea there were so many permutations of fruit cake! Congratulations and Radox all round and I'll be back next year to sample the Victoria sponges.
Date of review: January 16, 2005

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Overall score		80%
Would you do it again?		Yes
Details:
Scenery		100%
PB potential		40%
Atmosphere		100%
Organisation		80%
Value		100%
Beginner-friendliness		80%

In short: Gets this year's prize for the most hideous t-shirt! Seriously, a terrific soggy Sunday
In full: First time I've entered this and I'll be back for more - it was brilliant. Gratuitous switchbacks, hills you had to descend on your arse, no hope of anything like a representative time for the distance. That said, on the whole it resembled nothing so much as a raucous school outing, full of giggling, filthy, deleriously happy people - thank you Bitton RR for your spectacular race!
Date of review: November 15, 2004

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Overall score		80%
Would you do it again?		Yes
Details:
Scenery		100%
PB potential		80%
Atmosphere		60%
Organisation		80%
Value		60%
Beginner-friendliness		40%

In short: It's my local race so I love it!
In full: The start is a complete joke - a chalk line on the road next to the undertakers! The Torrington road is open throughout the race so the first few miles are done with the traffic - this makes for quite busy water stations as there is no room to spread out. The Tarka Trail is glorious but not as flat as you would imagine. On the whole this is rather a quiet race, rather like a feisty Sunday run with a few hundred close, personal friends!
Date of review: November 11, 2004

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