Bideford Park Run
Apologies to Claudine Benstead as, due to a busy week of running last week, her park run result on Saturday 1st June was missed. Claudine maintained her usual high standards at Bideford park run, achieving a course record of 19 minutes and 53 seconds. Claudine also achieved 1st lady, 1st in her age category, was the 8th overall finisher and a 101.93% age grading. Congratulations to Claudine!
5km Summer Series
Claudine then joined fellow ORCs Paul Evison and Andrew Vernon on Tuesday 4th June at the 5km Summer Series at the Flowerpot fields in Exwick. A well-attended race, the two lap course makes its way along the riverside and back along the path around the playing field. All three ORCs took first place in their age category position with Andrew achieving a time of 19 minutes and 17 seconds (first in the M55 category), Claudine achieving a time of 20 minutes and 12 seconds (first in the F60 category) and Paul Evison coming home in a time off 22 minutes and 50 seconds (first in M70 category). Paul also achieved a new club record. Congratulations to all three ORCs for a successful evening’s running.
Buckland Bounder
On Saturday 8th, four ORCs took part in the Buckland Bounder; a scenic multi-terrain run of just over six miles, starting and finishing in Buckland Monachorum.
The hilly route leads up from Buckland Monachorum onto Roborough Common at Alston crossing the Maristow Estate. Runners enjoy amazing views before dropping down over the open moor, through the woods to Lower Grenofen. Crossing the river at Double Waters, runners take a steep climb back up to the top of the open moorland before returning to Buckland Monachorum.
Tom Poland was first home in a time of 43 minutes closely followed by Joe Lane at 46 minutes. Daniel Heggs came home in 52 minutes and Sarah Dean, who achieved first ORC lady home recently at the Marilyn’s Meldon Madness event, followed the group up with a time of 1 hour and 18 minutes. Fantastic running by all.
Dartmoor Discovery
Not too far from the Buckland Bounder, four ORCs were taking on the Dartmoor Discovery over at Princetown. The Dartmoor Discovery, or DD as it’s also known, is the UK’s longest single lap road ultramarathon and has a distance of 32 miles and 899 yards (those extra yards count!) and is run by the Teignbridge Trotters.
The route starts and finishes in Princetown taking runners up and down some of the toughest Dartmoor hills through Postbridge, Ashburton and Widecombe-in-the-Moor. The race has cut-off points at the half marathon, 20 mile and marathon points which, if not met, runners are politely asked to withdraw from the event so the pressure is on. Robert Kelly, Chris Turner and Paul Carter are no strangers to this event with Robert and Paul joining the DD “hall of fame” for 9 and 14 events completed respectively and all three coming away with brilliant results each year.
Chris was the first ORC home in an incredible time of 4 hours and 18 minutes and appearing in the top ten of first runners’ home for the second year running. Chris was happy with how the event went, feeling the best he’d felt on those difficult final miles, however he regretted turning down an ice pop! Robert was next home in a time of 5 hours and 16 seconds with Paul hot on his heels at 5 hours and 21 minutes.
Lucy Gooding decided to give the event a try this year for the first time and came home in 6 hours and 49 minutes. Lucy was surprised to be able to make the cut offs and was pleased to have crossed the finish line.
The Dartmoor 600s
The Dartmoor 600s is a challenge to reach all 5 of the 600m hills on Dartmoor. The challenge is to start at the Dartmoor Inn nr Lydford then go in any direction and return. Robert Richards lead a group as part of the training run for those completing the Couch to 50km finale in July. Robert also welcomes some non-club members along as they expressed a wish to come along on the challenge. There were ten runners in total. They found the moor was stunning with good weather throughout the day, the lush meadows of grass were vibrant in many shades of green. All got safely around and everyone thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to navigate to Yes Tor, High Willhayes, Hangingstone, Whitehorse and finally Cut Hill, reputedly the most remote hill in Southern England.
British Mountain Running Inter Counties
Luke Stannus competed in the British Fell Running Inter Counties representing Devon this week. Luke came 12th and felt pleased about his positioning, particularly given that he had just stepped up an age group (Luke is now running in the under 19’s age group) and experienced foot pain throughout the event. Despite his injury, Luke achieved a time of 44 minutes, 21 seconds across the 8.6km route.
Dolomiti Extreme Trail
Jennifer Law took part in the Dolomiti Extreme Trail 11km (although Jennifer says that it was actually 12.3km in total). The Dolomiti Extreme Trail, or DXT for short, first began in 2013 and continues to thrive. It is a popular event in Italy and has six options for competitors ranging from the spearhead – the 103k, which will lead you to the discovery of all the mountains that crown the Val di Zoldo; to the equally captivating 72k, 55k, 22k, 11k; to the Mini DXT for young runners.
Val di Zoldo has remained untouched by mass tourism and therefore gives runners “a pure trail through uncontaminated woods, incomparable rock formations and vast scree, along paths that will lead you to cross small streams, jump roots and climb steep slopes.” The DXT starts and finishes in the village of Forno.
Jennifer completed the course in 1 hour and 38 minutes and was the first GB runner. Jennifer was also the 35th female out of 129.
