OKEHAMPTON Running Club was well represented at the Tavistock town relays last week with five teams entered, two of which were amongst the prize winners.

Always a popular event with a huge number of competitive teams running, Okehampton’s male vet team of Andrew Vallance, Geoff Hill, Rob Hicks and Paul Crease stormed round to come fifth overall and first male vets.

The Okehampton senior men’s team of Will Lamerton, Matt Pitson, Graham Bryant and Mark Harding were also on fire, coming third overall with Will Lamerton putting in an incredibly fast time of 5.01 for the 1.1 mile lap.

As the summer weather finally started to show itself this weekend, some Okehampton runners were met with the challenge of racing in high temperatures for the first time this year.

On Sunday the club hosted the first of its summer series of races, the Cosdon Hill race which is run as part of the Belstone Village Fair. This traditional fell race starts on Belstone Common and runners take their own line to race to the top of Cosdon Beacon, which can be seen from the start, and back, a distance of 3.2 miles.

The beautiful sunshine made for a great day for the fair and spectators of the race, but not the best conditions for a race with around 300m of ascent over rough terrain, with many taking the opportunity of cooling off by running through the river near the end instead of using the footbridge.

Okehampton’s Rob Hicks was triumphant in his first attempt at this race, finishing in an impressive 30.00 with fellow ORC, Andrew Vallance taking third place in 30.58. Okehampton’s only lady runner, Charlie Collier navigated a different route back via Sticklepath, thankfully returning safe and sound if somewhat later than the others.

High temperatures weren’t the problem for Okehampton runner Caroline Wilson who returned to her home territory to run the Dundee Half Marathon on Sunday.

Here it was typical Scottish weather with wind, rain and a temperature of just 11 degrees.

The race has an undulating course with a slightly downhill profile making it a good PB course, but that was hard to achieve in the conditions. The rain did stop but the wind was relentless, especially in the last mile along the coast which cost Caroline the sub two hour time she was hoping for, coming home frustratingly near in 2.00.06, which was still a PB for her.