There were two races this weekend supported by Okehampton Running Club, both of which held a minute’s silence at the start as a mark of respect to her majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

On Sunday there were 14 ORC runners taking part in the popular local race, the War Horse 10k. A unique touch to this race is that it is started by shotgun

The race starts and finishes in the picturesque village of Iddesleigh and takes the runners through country lanes and the beautiful estate of the privately owned Ash House.

The majority of the route is ascent, with a particularly gruelling one-mile climb around the four-mile mark.

On a beautiful day for running, Ian Ripper was the first ORC home in a time of 48:18, followed by Claire Watkins in 48:32, who took first place in her age category. This rewarded her with a beautiful plaque and a signed copy of Michael Morpurgo’s book, War Horse.

Paul Evison continuing his good form was the next ORC back in a superb time of 49:56, followed by Anne Binns, who is training for the New York marathon, in 50.07 and husband John in 50:18. They were followed by another husband-and-wife team, Karen King in 54:10 and Paul in 55:27.

Rachel Luxton was next home in 55:31, Richard Jones 58:41, Chris Fulford-Brown in 1:05:31 and Victoria Evison in 1:06:46, who smashed a whopping eight minutes off her time from her last run on this course!

The newest member of the club, Louis Rowlands, did well to come home in 1:09:33 followed by Lucy Gooding in 1:11:06 and Olivia Wheeleker and Jo Teixeira together in 1:20:54 – well done to everyone.

Also running on Sunday were Angus Farrelly and Sarah and Molly Marvin, the only ORCs to travel to Honiton for the 2022 Honiton Hippo.

Billed as a ‘Tough multi-terrain race with roughly seven miles of mud, sweat and tears’ it lived up to its promise!

The ‘highlight’ is the Land Rover Experience, where runners have no choice but to pass through several different water features. Water is also on the agenda with the two river crossings, which is waist height for most runners!

Sarah reported there was plenty of water and lots of mud, hills (hills and more hills), but the many lovely smiling marshals made for a great atmosphere and all in all, a thoroughly enjoyable and recommended day out.

All three of them came in together in a time of 1:23:29.