ON Saturday Bere Alston Trekkers (BATs) took part in two events The Crossing and Fremington 10k.

Organised by Pure Trail, The Crossing is a 36.5 mile ultra marathon run across Dartmoor from north to south. It starts in Belstone, passing through Postbridge and Princetown before finishing in Ivybridge.

The participants experienced the wilderness of the High Moor and the beauty of the periphery (and the heat of sun!) in an event which unusually included just 1,119 metres of ascent and 1,516 metres of descent.

The race was Gary Fielder’s first experience of an ultra marathon and he finished in an admirable time of 8 hours 17 minutes while experienced ultra runner Paul Martin having had an injury ‘flare up’ made the tough decision to retire at the 20-mile mark in Princetown.

The inaugural Fremington Trailblazer 10k, organised by Fremington Trailblazers Running Club, was a 10k multi-terrain run starting and finishing at Fremington Manor in North Devon and held in conjunction with the Party at the Manor Festival which took place on Sunday. The multi-terrain route included circa two miles alongside the River Taw, running out and around the Home Farm Marsh, and various footpaths and surfaces in between. BAT’s Holly Higgs finished in a time of 57 minutes 58 seconds.

Friday, August 23 was the fourth in Freedom Racing’s Summer Sessions series, being the Godolphin 10k, which unlike the other events in the series is a multi-terrain event with not a coastpath in sight! However, the weather provided fantastic views from the top of both Godolphin Hill and Tregonning Hill to both the north and south coasts of Mount’s Bay and St Ives Bay.

BATs Martin and Hilary Head took part, finishing in 51.06 and 1.20.00 respectively.