5 guys, 4 trigs, 3 hours, 2 tired legs, 1 late night.

“Oh it’s ten to ten” I said, as we stopped our watches & all agreed we should walk the last quarter mile back to the car.
We’d been running for 2h30m & with stop/starts of the watch it was easily another 15-20 mins. Now heading into near darkness, with one man down; hungry, tired, bordering on desperate. WHERE IS THE CAR?! Apparently only 1k away… At 7pm when things were a little more fresh I’d packed a gel & some water & thought this would be fine.
I ate my gel at the hour mark & was so enthusiastic about the Raspberry Ripple flavour that I offered it round for the guys to try; schoolboy error!
Just over 2 weeks after my glorious Dartmoor run I find myself here again, although this time the flashbacks were a little more 2012-esque.

It’s been a good few months since I’ve taken a head torch on a run & really didn’t think I was going to need one on a clear summer’s evening. Yet here we were, hurtling down a rocky path with a slither of tarmac down the centre, the path covered by trees. It reminded me of training runs with the Tamar Trotters, led by Paul ‘Willy’ Wilsmore. Regularly on winter runs we would end up running down a stream, a loose rocky path, or what could well have been someone’s private land! And on Spring/Autumn runs we would go ‘this way’ & worry heading down a dusky Cornish lane as the evening light fades away. Willy always had an air or confidence on these runs, any moaning greeted with ‘be a’right’.

So how did I get here?
It comes back to a little thing known as Strava and a local race called Exe to Axe.
Anyone who knows me will hear me mention Strava or the Exe to Axe race at least once a week(!)
Strava is a site where people upload their cycle/run data straight from their GPS device. It then let’s all of your followers know how far you’ve been, how fast you’ve gone & keeps a weekly, monthly, even yearly total of your miles & hours exercising. It can be very addictive logging all those miles & what really makes it exciting is the segments!
Segments are mini competitions; little races on a certain stretch of road (normally a hill). If your run includes a segment, you make the leaderboard. I have been known to go for my normal run & charge up any hill I see, just on the off chance it’s a segment.
A local runner from Budleigh, Justin seems to hit some of the same segments as me whilst training on the Woodbury routes so we suggested a run together, and look where it got me!
Having run Exe to Axe back in April I was in contact with another crazy trail runner, David, a friend of Justin’s. And with 2 of their mates the ‘East Devon Ultra Runners’ were born!

The route Justin took us on is the route of a local race called The Four Trigs, this sounds friendly enough. What I hadn’t realised is what trigs actually are- triangulation points for navigation, usually found at a look out point on the top of a massive hill!!

The climbs were quite impressive at times, easily hitting 15% gradient. The 2 other guys were a little less familiar with this style of running but they hung on in there (almost) til the end. We may have lost one on the way, not sure how late he got home!
We picked up some of the Exe to Axe route backwards & Justin & I tried to show off our fell running skills, sprinting down the steps & hills, it was pretty scary!

Our next meeting is a run from Okehampton to Ivybridge, toughly 30 miles & I’ll be sure to pack at least 5 gels each!

Our little group is growing, recently joining members of the madness:
Tobit
Angelo
Tim

Update to follow on the ever growing group….

Strava data: app.strava.com/activities/158165957

Twitter: @muddymiker