A nice personal account of the Race from one of its biggest fans! Adam Holland (TAC).
Adam’s Race account
Every time I do this event I look forward to it as it’s one of my favourites! When I started driving to the event I got called back home to help sort out my daughter, nothing serious and once that was sorted I set off again. I arrived with about 8 minutes to spare before the start. HQ and the event start are in 2 different locations, I ran to HQ to pick up my number. Another runner was having a problem picking up their number even though it was sorted, they wanted the name of the person they had swapped with. Which the race director knew about, I said I would go and ask, I ran up the hill to the start, mentioned it to him for him to sort it out with 1-2 minutes to spare. We start halfway up, which means we have another half of the hill to run up to get the Haytor. I carried a soft bottle of water with me to keep me hydrated. 3-2-1 and we were off!!
the race
I watched as one by one people passed me going up the hill, when we reached the top, I was in 12th place. We went around the top and started heading down. This is where my strength comes in and I started overtaking to get into 2nd place behind Robert. I tried to keep up with him with a small gap between us. A mile and a half in, we went down the steepest part and I started closing the gap a bit more. Took a left along a gravelly path and then some more downhill which was where I was able to get behind him. I saw him catch his ankle and asked if he was okay. All good, as we were still going downhill I thought I would take this opportunity to overtake as I knew there was going to be a steep hill and I wouldn’t be able to keep up. I managed to twist my ankle which certainly hurt but I was still able to run. I forgot about the little hill before that which is where he overtook me again. Just before the 3 mile mark, we started going up and I tried to run without walking with success. I watched as Robert disappeared off ahead and when we came out the top he was well ahead. Loads of lovely technical bits, like running through the narrow fern bushes, across moorland, rocky twists and turns which makes this an amazing course.
At about 4.6 miles we started heading uphill. 0.2 mile after that on some of the ‘rock climbing’ bits I started walking which I know I shouldn’t have but my stomach was feeling a little bit cramped from leaning over and of course I was warm. I started running afterwards again. At 0.2 miles further on I did a bit more walking. I started running but at a slower pace. That’s when Ceri then Louis passed me. I should have tried to stick with them but I think in my head I was worried I was going to walk again. We were still on a steady uphill back to Haytor. As I went over the top of the hill I could see Ceri was well ahead and Louis had a big GAP, but I was still going to try to see if I could catch him.
The final 0.4 mile downhill I really ramped up the speed!! I even beat my previous segment time (Haytor Heller Downhill Finish 0.79km) 2017 2:07 – this time 2:00 which is 2:31/km. I was very close to catching him but ran out of course as he cross the line before me.
1st Robert Ellis 40:47
2nd Ceri Rees 42:58
3rd Louis Ratcliffe 43:16
4th Adam Tango Holland 43:20
5th Lee Turner 44:53
Adams tips
Definitely a race I recommend but you need to get your entries in quick as they have a strict race limit of 350!! Normally sells out before race day. But it was a shame to see that only 247 finishers and 8 not finished. That’s 95 people missing…..
I won 2nd V35 category and Tavistock athletics team – Myself, Samuel, Joe and and Richard finished 5th overall
Ultra Great Britain Soft Bottle x2 were really useful.
My finishing on this race
2022 43:20 4th
2021 44:42 2nd ( felt even hotter)
2018 41:54 2nd
2017 42:20 1st
2007 45:07 2nd
2005 44:53 7th
2004 43:42 7th
Thanks to Adam Holland for his personal view.
Just to note also some awesome running from Kirsteen Welch ( but not counted due to number issue) would have been a new course record. First Lady to count local Jo Meek in 49;36 , with Alice Kelly form Exmouth close on her heels in 49:47 followed by Exeter Tri Club Lucy Commander in 52:19.
Plus lots of other personal battles and achievements from 250 runners well done to Teignbridge Trotters.
See you at the next race – the Postbridge pootle..
Richard