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Pound the Pound, Meldon Skyline, Total Coastal, Black Dog Marathon, Feighan Fury & Tavy 13

Pound the Pound

Saturday saw Gary Letheren head to Whistland Pound Reservoir for the ‘Pound the Pound’. This involves running around the 4.3km loop as many times as you can in 6 hours. Gary who has not been running much lately began to feel it in his feet, knees and hips quite early on but pushed on to complete 11 laps (27.61 miles) in 5 hours 38 minutes. A strong performance from him off little training.

Meldon Skyline Fell Race and Devon AA Championships

Saturday also saw ORC’s in action at Meldon. The Meldon Skyline is the first race of the season in the Dartmoor Fell Series. It also forms part of the Devon AA Championships and is a stiff challenge at 7.1 miles with over 600 metres of ascent. The runners start at Meldon reservoir and climb to Yes Tor then proceed to High Willhayes, Fordsland Ledge and Black Tor. They then follow the ridge of Homerton Hill before dropping down to the weir and back up again to Sourton Tor. Finally after going through the checkpoint at Southdown it’s back to finish at Meldon carpark.  Sam Priday finished 10th in 1:04:08 and was followed by Tom Poland 1:04:46, Jo Lane 1:07:29 and Katherine Hails 1:28:07. Five young club runners were taking on the junior courses with some impressive results. Jake Lane was 1st U9, Art Lane was 1st U11, Alistair Taylor 3rd U11, Eleanor Taylor 1st U13 and Ezekiel Evans 3rd U13.

Total Coastal Half Marathon

Chris Turner was the only ORC to run at Paignton in the Total Coastal Half Marathon on Saturday. It was pouring with rain until 10 minutes before the start at which time the sun broke through and made for a warm run.

Starting at Preston Green near Paignton, the route is on Tarmac as far as the Imperial Hotel in Torquay where you join the South West Coast Path. The route gets increasingly hilly and muddy as you pass Babbacombe and make your way to the Ness at Shaldon.

Chris ran really well and won the race finishing in 2.06. Congratulations to him on a fine win.

Black Dog Marathon

In what was turning out to be a busy weekend for racing Rob Hicks and Charlie Temperley ran the inaugural Black Dog Marathons (inspired by the Barkley marathon in Eastern Tennessee). It was organised by Rob Gooding and HQ was his family’s farm in the village of Black Dog. Runners (in pairs or solo) ran 5 x5 km laps of the undulating course which included fields, woods and a section of road. Each runner was given a page torn from a book and had to visit the 4 books placed on the route to collect the corresponding page and prove the lap had been completed.  After pages were checked at HQ a new page was issued and a new lap begun. Both came home comfortably in the 3:45 time limit and enjoyed a different kind of race, somewhere neither had run before.

Feighan Fury 10 Mile Trail Race

Four ORC’s headed to the rolling hills of Templeton on Sunday for the first running of the Feighan Fury 10 mile Trail Race. Brilliantly organised by  South West Road Runners and the Exe Valley Rotary Club . The race promotes the positive mental health benefits of running and is run in memory of former SWWR member Mike Feighan.

The course is 70% off road, with runners taken around private land, over undulating hills and through rivers and wooded trails with a final brutal climb to the finish. Although the weather was good on the day, the recent rain made the course challengingly muddy and wet but with that came lots of slippery fun!

The race was enjoyed by all! First ORC home was Claire Watkins in 1.31.31 followed by Ian Ripper 1.33.26, Sarah Marvin 1.40.08 and Lucy Gooding 2.23.52. Lucy did particularly well having fallen at mile three showing great determination to finish the race.

Tavy 13

On a lovely sunny spring morning three ORC’s headed to Tavistock for the Tavy 13.

The first half of the course is somewhat undulating but the last 5miles are pretty flat and downhill. Coming back into town through the beautiful Meadowlands Park, runners find themselves finishing on the Tavistock running Track.

First ORC home was Andrew Vernon in an excellent 16th place in 1.34.38 taking 3rd MV50, just a couple of minutes behind him was Jo Page, who was the second lady home, 1.36.47 claiming 1st FV35, next to cross the line and taking 5th MV40 was Mike Saywell in 1.43.11. A good performance all round.