Okehampton Running Club race with distinction

Okehampton RC (ORC) racers represented their club with distinction in Portsmouth, Plymouth, Torrington and Amsterdam at a variety of distances on very different routes.

Sophie Casavielle-Lacaze won the Torrington Stephen’s Shield cross-country race on Friday, October 16, at Torrington RFC. Proud mum Sarah said Sophie gave a strong performance. The next round is at West Buckland to qualify for North Devon.

Laura Venton happened (by a lucky chance) to be in Plymouth (rather than Okehampton or even further afield) when she remembered she had entered the Plymouth Acronyms 10k. Despite nearly missing it due to forgetting it was on, Laura happily made it to the start line. She enjoyed the nice weather and achieved a personal best for the 10k in 57:53 as a very welcome bonus.

Laura said she was ‘buzzing’ and was grateful to her friends from the running club for giving her the confidence to push on. The route went from the Marine Academy, crossed the Tamar Bridge and returned to Ernesettle, Plymouth. Well done Laura.

The Great South Run ten-miler in Portsmouth proved a rewarding home-from-home visit for non-stop Okehampton RC racer Pearl Barnes.

Our Pearl insists she’s having a rest now given she’s now completed her sixth race in five weeks but this so-called ‘rest’ consists of a cycling holiday.

After her latest race Pearl deserves a rest for more than an athletic reason, as she had a very stressful journey up to Portsmouth with the A303 closed and her satnav sending her on a tour of Wiltshire. The bad news did not stop there. Having finally turned up at the hotel, the traumatic day turned took a turn for the worse when she was told that a glitch in the system had cancelled her room. Two hours later, Pearl managed to find another hotel room.

The following morning she made it safely to the start line alongside 26,000 other runners to take part in the ten-mile route around the city taking in landmarks such as the D-Day museum, the cathedral, Old Portsmouth and Southsea.

Pearl used to live in Portsmouth and used to cycle around the city, so was excited to be back on familiar territory. She was ‘thrilled’ to complete the event in 1 hour and 35 minutes and said she had an ‘amazing day – I loved it’.

Meanwhile, the hill-less Amsterdam Marathon proved a fast race for two ORC members. Club chair Emma Jewell and fellow committee member Matt Grint headed over to Amsterdam last weekend (October 17-18) to take on the Amsterdam Marathon.

With Holland not known for its hills, the route was a flat one, with 91 metres of elevation in total scuppering Matt’s plans to ‘take it easy on the hills’.

Beginning the event in the city centre, Matt and Emma stood shivering in bin bags as the rain fell before the start of the event.

The route headed out along the canals before returning to finish in the historic Olympic stadium. Matt said that Amsterdam definitely knows how to throw a party and the marathon was no different with fantastic crowds along the route.

Matt and Emma were really pleased with their times with both of them taking over ten minutes off their respective personal bests; Emma finished in three hours and 43 with Matt in four hours and eight minutes.