Last Saturday saw two of Okehampton Running Club’s (ORC) ladies, Karen Vallance and Katie Littlejohns take on pureTRAIL UK’s ‘The Great Escape’.
This race is part of the Dartmoor Big Day Out series. The aim of these races is to get runners off the road and onto trails, to explore and have fun running in nature.
The Great Escape starts at Princetown in the heart of the Moor, with the route taking in the last 15.5 miles of ‘The Crossing’ (the 36.5 mile race from Belstone to Ivybridge), traversing the remote moorland wilderness along the Abbot’s Way.
The aim is to ‘escape’ from the moor within the time allowed of 4.5 hours, giving the competitors a real taste of Dartmoor trail running.
Both ORC’s finished well within the allowed time, with Katie the first lady home in an amazing 2hrs 9mins and Karen not far behind in a time of 2hrs 32mins. They summarised it as ‘an enjoyable but technical race over the moor’, well done ladies.
For people who are new to running, or want to improve, the next Couch to 5k starts on Tuesday 21 September. You can find details and register your interest on the club’s Facebook post.