11 Jun Downpours can’t dampen the SDAC spirit!
It was all about the long distances for South Devon Athletic Club runners Paul Williams and Jamie Duffield (pictured) over a weekend that offered plenty of changeable weather.
Paul signed up for the gruelling Dartmoor Discovery, taking on the UK’s longest single-loop road ultra. The ‘DD’ starts and finishes in Princetown, with hilly moorland roads taking the runners across to Ashburton and Buckland-in-the-Moor before the return leg via Widecombe.
Organised by Teignbridge Trotters, the race attracted 180 starters and gave them an occasional soaking from heavy showers along the way. Paul Williams (below – picture courtesy of Teignbridge Trotters) completed the 33-mile course in 6h 37m 12s.
For ‘JD’ the weekend’s sport was the Endure24 event in Reading, a challenge to complete as many laps of an eight-kilometre parkland course as possible in 24 hours.
Setting himself a target of completing 140 miles within the target time, he hit 70 by the halfway point in torrential rain and mud.
Eventually it was a bad set of blisters and a recurring knee injury that forced him to reluctantly pull out before the end.
Kerry Bell also kept the SDAC flag flying with a fine run in the Wray Valley 10k on a course near Bovey Tracey. She finished 12th in 53m 12s.