Trigs Training underway at Sidmouth Running Club

With the 4 Trigs event reaching its eighteenth birthday next month members of Sidmouth Running Club have been out training to ensure they can celebrate in style with good runs on the day. Describing itself as a ‘low-key’ off-road running event the challenge on 11th February is anything but low key as it covers a distance of approximately 28km with hundreds of metres of climb. Runners have to visit each of the four Triangulation Pillars around the Sid Valley choosing their own routes, but ensuring they visit each Trig Point in the prescribed order. Local knowledge of footpaths and trails is a distinct advantage so the three training runs organised by members of Sidmouth Running Club have been well supported.

The first two training runs covered trig 1 (High Peak) and trig 2 (Fire Beacon Hill). Last Sunday 14 plucky runners set out in the rain to run the last two trigs, Buckton Hill and Weston Trig, starting and finishing at the Sailing Club. ‘It was 11 miles in the drizzle and mostly mud, mud glorious mud’ said Terry Bewes. ‘That is the most mud I have seen on that route and we all enjoyed watching Janice Ranson throwing some shapes on the muddy path down from Buckton Trig trying to stay on her feet and mountaineering up the short cut through the woods on Harcombe Hill’.  ‘I finished in a flip flop because my trainers delaminated’ said stoical Cathy Keast, who at one stage was so focused with her head down climbing out of a valley that she nearly collided with a soggy pony sheltering by a hedge. ‘I’m not sure which of us was more surprised’. Fellow runners slithered their way up and down the coastal footpath getting plastered in mud in the process and all declaring themselves happy to reach the end. ‘It was a tough training run, but we’re all well prepared now’ said Club Chairman Terry Bewes.

The event on 11th February will be hosted by Sidmouth Running Club and organisers Rob and Marion Hayman hope to attract around 120 entrants. All profits will go to the charity CRY(Cardiac Risk in the Young). ‘Last year we raised a total of £1,350 for CRY and Sidmouth held its first screening in June’ said Marion. ‘The event is a great way to raise funds and awareness of this charity which aims to prevent young sudden cardiac death (YSCD) through awareness, screening and research’. Find more details and entry forms at www.sidmouthrunningclub.co.uk