"After booking a week off work we decided to go to Dartmoor camping for the week.  What better way to start the week than to run in the Dartmoor Dash I thought so I sent mine and Richard’s entries off.  Sitting at work on Wednesday dreaming of the fact I only had another 2 days at work before my well earned break Richard phoned.  It turned out I had booked the following week but Richard had in fact booked the week after.  So this is what married life is about – booking different holidays!  So I trudged in to my boss to tell him that I was now taking my leave a week later and thought about the 7 days I now had to work before my holiday.  Anyway back to the Dartmoor Dash, I had entered so I thought I may as well run it.  Richard had conveniently developed a bad cold on Friday so decided not to run but came to support (obviously didn’t have any golf scheduled!).

I don’t like being late for races but turning up before all of the organisers was probably a little too early, I nearly offered to help them set up registration to give me something to do.  Leaving at 9.30am for a 2.00pm start in Princetown was obviously somewhat excessive.  I looked around as people began to arrive but didn’t recognise anyone although there were a few Cornish vests.  Against all odds the weather had turned out fine apart from the wind.

2.00pm and we were off - straight up to the top of a tor.  I was expecting it to be quite boggy given all the rain we have had so I was thinking the track we were running on wasn’t too bad – little did I know what the rest of the course was like.  Once at the top of the tor we turned off the main track and it was wet, boggy, muddy, rocky, uneven moorland for most of the route.  I was thinking my road shoes were probably not the best thing to be wearing at this point  especially after the warning from Kev about running along the edge of a leat – ‘one slip and you’re in the water’ were his exact words I think.  I thought I was going to need my snorkel at one point as I stepped up to my hip in a bog - I wondered why the runner in front of me had disappeared for a moment.  The route was well marked with little red flags which supposedly took you along the least boggy route according to the friendly marshal.  I would hate to have seen the more boggy route!  There were no mile markers so I didn’t really know how far I had run, I just kept battling through the bogs until I hit the road and saw the prison which meant I was nearly finished.  I ran up the road and saw a marshal with a sign saying Finish and pointing left so I turned in only to find there was no finish line just the back yard of the café – probably the strangest finish I’ve seen.  I was quite pleased with my run until Richard informed me I was 4th woman – how frustrating especially as the 3rd place runner had passed me at about halfway and I thought at the time it would be quite annoying if she was third!  Other Cornish folk fared better however with a Cornwall ACer coming 3rd overall and a Newquay Road Runner 2nd woman.  Overall I enjoyed the run which was well marshalled and marked throughout the route even if the finish left a bit to be desired – a nice warm up for the cross country season.  I will probably add it to my race calendar for next year – maybe with some nice off road shoes next time!"

Ceri