SOME people bored with the restrictions imposed by Covid-19 binged on box sets, dug up their garden umpteen times or bought a shed-load of things they didn’t really want online.

Tavistock super athlete Jo Meek passed the time by running 74 miles across some of Dartmoor’s toughest terrain and beat the record for doing it by more than two hours.

Jo, a gold medal winner for Great Britain in the 2008 Doha World Championships, was wondering what to do with herself when the coronavirus pandemic put paid to races she fancied doing.

But inspiration struck when she caught wind of the Nigel Jenkins Dartmoor Round, founded by a runner of the same name, who covered the 70-plus miles and 28 tors in 1999 on the eve of the millennium in 18 hours during the winter darkness.

Intrigued, she investigated some more and found out other athletes had run the same course, the previous record set at 16 hours and 11 minutes.

She said: ‘The Round gained interest during the lockdown when people looked closer to home for their challenges. I read about Patrick Devine-Wright and Tim Denton doing it on the Summer Solstice and thought that was the challenge for me.’

Jo, however, gave herself the best chance of putting in a scorching run by taking a good look at the circular course she was about to tackle so she wouldn’t get lost on the way round and lose precious time.

It was just as well that she did.

After getting up at 2.30am on Saturday (15th) and arriving at the Royal Oak pub at Meavy near Sheepstor at 4am for the off, visibility on Dartmoor deteriorated into a mush of mist, fog and rain, making it difficult for the athlete to see where she was going. Only later in her run did the sun come out.

Jo, 43, was backed up by runners who ran part of the course, which took her as far afield as Western Beacon near Ivybridge, with her to keep her pace up and husband Jon. Her back up team fed her with high-energy supplies to keep her strength up as her legs started to feel heavy as she blasted through the miles.

She admitted: ‘Driving to the start it was really foggy, the sheep and cattle had all congregated on the road and so it was slalom driving in the dead of night — quite stressful as I was nervous.

‘Training had already incorporated long days on Dartmoor as my lockdown focus was to really get to know the moor. I arranged to run sections with friends and even got to run a Round section supporting Patrick (Devine-Wright) as he had another go at it. I studied the map obsessively and soon it featured in my dreams.’

Even so, Jo missed her way once, but added: ‘It was really a good day. I wasn’t doing it for charity, but just because I wanted to do it and it was so rewarding.

‘Normally, I would have been racing, but lockdown gave me the chance to explore Dartmoor, which I love.’