WITH the final Chard Road Runners Championship points up for grabs, it was off for the local Full Monty-Cute 10-mile race.

Heading off from its base at Ham Hill, this multi-terrain race had all that is needed for a pre-Christmas Race - mud, hills and roaming wildlife.

Running for CRRs were Wayne Loveridge, Steve Barnes, Philip Goodridge-Reynolds, Simon Hall, Claire Pomeroy, Helen Baxter and Claire Gibbs.

Heading out with a sprint start was CRRs' Loveridge, with Barnes and Goodridge-Reynolds hot on his heels.

Settling into a good pace behind were Hall, the two Claires and Baxter, who were finding how the slippery conditions underfoot were going to take their toll.

As the pack started to stretch out, Hall chose to avoid a direct collision with a deer with a quick ‘excuse me’!

As the steeper of the hills came into play, the ladies teamed up to get over the swampy ground that was likely to bring their race to a halt without a bit of push and pull to keep trainers from coming off.

At the halfway mark, Loveridge had really taken the race by the horns and was in the top five runners, all trying to keep out of the way of wandering dogs and the very interested sheep, who thought they were all part of a game of chase.

Barnes was finding the going very much to his liking, and taking the long hill at the eight-mile point was seen with a fantastic smile, which was either enjoyment or pain, but either way he was making fantastic progress through the field of 255 runners.

Hall, on reaching this long hill, took the initiative to step ahead of Goodridge-Reynolds in the hope of taking some metres out of him once the conditions levelled out.

With the race heading in for the last mile, the two Claires and Baxter had stuck with the plan to support each other to the end, and with the finish line in sight it was Loveridge who crossed first for CRRs in 1h 12m 57s, and a very impressive third place overall.

Next for CRRs was Barnes, who had a sprint finish to cross in 24th place in a time of 1h 22m 42s.

With a very strong finish, next CRR was Hall in 1h 56m 20s, with Goodridge-Reynolds crossing in 2h 02m 58s.

Then, having stuck to their plan, CRRs had a line of three in Helen Baxter, Claire Pomeroy and Claire Gibbs each crossing in 2h 31m 1s.