The Westcombe Society would like to hear what local residents thought of this years Run to the Beat. We hope it was a success for the runners despite a few hiccups on the course. We also hope that the change of route and information circulated in advance was a help to local residents. Let us have your comments here…
I am a runner & have run most of the Run to the Beat races. They are usually poorly organised, badly planned & very expensive. However this year was by far the worst race to date.
Let me list some gripes:
1. Queue to get into the barracks (& out again). This ruined the race for many, all runners like to compare times & this was made impossible. Not only that but we had just warmed up & the muscles cooled down again.
2. Water in cup-totally useless, particularly given we paid £50 for this. Also unhygienic.
3. Paths too narrow in many places for the number of runners.
4. No tags for the timing chip-surely with £50 fee they could include a few tags.
5. Accute turns/loops & course design just a nonsense.
6. May have been just me but spotting most of the mile markers was tough, didn’t see one between 6 & 12, were there any?
I will not be running this event again. In fact if they attempt to promote this race through social media I will be actively commenting to put people off this race.