The tough got going when Okehampton Running Club (ORC) tackled the dark, the tide and the hills.

Saturday saw three ORC’s heading to Mothecombe on the Erme Estuary for OuterEdge Events Race the Light.

Runners face the unique challenge of a double crossing of the River Erme estuary within a tight time frame to avoid being cut off by the tide. This made it a true race against the light and the tide!

Runners get wet feet right from the start. The first half of the route goes through undulating forest trials, with plenty of hills and mud on the second half of the route, but with fantastic views over Burgh Island.

The race finishes with a mighty uphill climb to the finish line after crossing the Erme estuary again. The team billed it as a fantastic event and well worth the wait.

Ian Ripper was the first ORC home in a time of 2h 01:12 and first in his age category. Matt Grint was next in a time of 2:16:50 and Simon Partridge in 2:41:16.

Also on Saturday Luke Stannus ran the Devon Schools Cross-Country Championships, finishing in 6th place which qualifies him for the English school’s cross-country championships in March.

On Saturday evening Keeley Phillips and Carole Loader took part in the Tehidy Twilight Run. Runners are invited to ‘grab your head torch and some friends (safety in numbers) and dare to tackle the forest after dark.

This starts in Tehidy Country Park in Camborne as stage 5 in the 2024-2025 owner and dog racing series - Canicross Championship Stage 1 in the 2025 5k and 10k Trail running championship, with the top 20 male and female finishers in each race earning championship points.

Keeley tackled the 5k race with pet Lockie, finishing tenth. Carole opted for the 10k with Scoobie and finishing fourth overall and first female.

The Couch to 50k half marathon group practised their trail running skills at Belstone on Sunday. Five runners braved the cold wind to learn some basic skills and techniques for off-road running.

This was followed by a short training run to test those newly acquired skills running around Belstone Cleave. If you’d like to learn more about this group contact club coach, Robert Richards on [email protected]