THE autumn marathon season saw three Okehampton Running Club members taking on the 26.2mile challenge at the Bournemouth Marathon Festival on Sunday.

Seasoned runners, Chris Turner and Graham Bryant, were joined by marathon rookie Mark Hawkins on a glorious day that was perfect for trip to the seaside, but a bit too hot for marathon running.

This year’s race was started by Ben Smith, who is nearing the end of his challenge to run the equivalent of 401 marathons in 401 days, and the course took the runners along the seafront between Boscombe and Bournemouth with beautiful coastal views but not much shade.

Despite the heat, Chris Turner had a great race to finish first of the three in 3 hours 28 minutes 08 seconds, setting a new personal best by just more than a minute. Mark Hawkins had struggled with the training, having only run his first half marathon this year, but had managed all the mileage, before pulling a hamstring with just 18 days to go. Rest and physio treatment made it possible for him to run and he was very relieved to complete in a great time of 4.02.01 and in doing so raised a large sum of money for Children’s Hospice South West and the Devon Air Ambulance. Unfortunately, Graham Bryant was forced to retire.

The Delicious Drake’s Trail is an untimed trail run, not a race, with a difference. The runners are taken on a gastronomic tour of the western fringes of Dartmoor between Tavistock and Yelverton sampling locally produced food and drink, including beer, wine, savouries and sweets, along the 11.5 mile route. With only 300 places available, ORC runners secured 15 of these and embraced the fancy dress ‘sporting heroes’ theme by being draped in Team GB flags and wearing masks of our Olympic medalists. On such a lovely day they all seemed to feel that food, drink and running made for a great day out.

On Saturday four ORCs took part in a team triathlon at Roadford Lake. The event took place from the Activity Centre on the lakeside and started with a 400m swim, followed by a 13k cycle and finished with a 3.5k run.

With 90 teams taking part, club chairman, Tim Watson, Dave Mugliston, Sarah Marvin and Juliette Paterson did extremely well, coming second in their age category just four seconds behind the winners, with Dave closing down on the last member of the winning team right to the end.