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Halloween Five, Tavy 7, Grand Canal Canter & Mags’ 40k Duathlon Challenge

After a very quiet week for the ORC runners last week, this Sunday saw runners heading off for Exeter, Tavistock, Tiverton and Great Torrington.

Halloween Five

Claudine Benstead ran in a new five mile run organised by City Community Trust, the Halloween Five event, perfect to blow off the cobwebs as we head into the winter period. The race starts at the Piazza Terracina by the Exeter Canal Basin, taking the runners round the scenic route of the Exe Valley River Park.

In very windy conditions Claudine had a very impressive run to finish in a time of 32:56, second lady home.

Tavy 7

Nine ORC’s headed to Tavistock to take part in the Tavy 7, a popular, and very well supported local 7 mile road race organised by Tavistock Athletic Club. The race starts at Plaster Down on the western edge of Dartmoor and goes past Pew Tor and the hamlet of Sampford Spiney, winding its way through quiet lanes and open moorland road back to the start/finish line.

There is always a good field of runners as this race also hosts the long established Ross Shield.

This year the runners were not met with entirely good conditions. A heavy shower just before the start sent the assembled runners scuttling for what cover they could find, fortunately thereafter the rain held off. More of a problem was the blustery wind which blew into the faces of the runners for the last mile, which was strong enough to take the pace out of most of the runners.

The ORC’s raced well, first home was Andrew Vernon in a time of 47:41, giving him second place in his age category. Jo Page was next in a time of 48:56, first in her category with a PB and club record, well done to both of them.

They were followed by Mike Saywell in 49:38 and Claire Watkins in 54:22. Paul Evison was next, recovering from a recent bout of Covid and did well to finish in 57:09, third place in his age category. He was followed by Paul King in 01:01:13 and Ged Fitzgibbon in 01:01:28 giving him second place in his age category.

Also, both recovering from illness, Karen King finished in 01:14:06, and Vicky Evison in a time of 01:17:08.

Grand Canal Canter

Joanne Teixeira and Olivia Wheeleker headed to Tiverton for the Grand Canal Canter Half Marathon. The route starts at the Tiverton Canal Basin and heads along the canal path for 6.6 miles to Sampford Peverell, then the runners turn round and head back to Tiverton.

There is less than 90ft of ascent in the half marathon, making it a flat course along the hard packed gravel canal path. Finishing in a time of 2:57 the ladies were rightly very proud of themselves!

Mags’ 40k Duathlon Challenge

Mags Jarvis, an ORC for over 10 years, ran and cycled in a 40k Duathlon Challenge (run 3k, cycle 35k, run 2k) along the Tarka Trail to raise money for Parkinson’s UK.

Mags has had Parkinson’s for the same length of time as she’s been a member of the club and if she wasn’t suffering with knee injuries would still be running races regularly.

She took on the challenge with support from other ORC’s and friends, Christine Jeffery, Chris Fulford-Brown, Janet White, Claire Sprague, Jane Jackson and Kerry Tyler.

They had a brilliant time, not deterred by continuous rain on their first run and then 9 miles of the bike ride getting them soaked and filthy!