Hitting the trails for his comeback race after a lengthy injury lay-off, Josh Cole was in Dartmoor for the 15.5 mile Great Escape
Just as he was getting back into the swing of things and mixing it with the front runners of the Tuesday night training squad, Josh Cole was struck down by broken foot. That was back in March and ever since then he’s been struggling with the healing process. That forced him to alter his training methods slightly and instead of doing the usual speed and tempo work he’s used to, he started doing long, slow runs.
Worried about the damage it could do if he resumes speedwork, he’s continued in that vain ever since. The Great Escape at Dartmoor would provide him with a good opportunity to assess his fitness and find out where he was at in a race environment.
The Great Escape was part of the BigDayOut put on by OuterEdge Events which also included The Crossing. The Crossing is a 33.5 mile ultramarathon that exposes runners to the true wilderness of Dartmoor.
The Great Escape consists of the final 15.5 miles of The Crossing, starting from Princetown in the heart of the Moor and heading along Abbott’s Way. It’s a predominantly downhill route with a few testing inclines thrown into the mixer. Crossing the upper section of the Erme Valley, it then traverses the Erme canyons. Continuing along the Abott’s Way, it’s then a long descent into Ivybridge when the race finishes.
Josh picks up his trophy after a convincing victory
Encountering some true Dartmoor weather, as soon as they go to the top of the moor, the rain came down and the mist descended upon them. Visibility was just 30 to 50 metres over bog. It was extremely tough terrain but Josh rose to the challenge.
Leading the race from the outset, Josh had the second placed runner still with him for the first five miles and was just running from flag to flag. After that Josh began to pull away and for the remainder of the race, he was by himself. It had been very rough ground for much of the way but the last four to five miles were more runnable and Josh was able to stretch his legs.
Josh with his two main rivals, James Finn was was 2nd and Stephen Fabes who came 3rd
Making it to the finish in a time of 1 hour 43 minutes and 33 seconds, Josh had crossed the line with a gap of over two minutes on his nearest rival. It was a very strong effort and Josh was surprised by the 6:54 average pace he’d managed considering he hadn’t been doing anything like that on his training runs.
With a 10k PB of 32:28 which he did at Eastleigh in March 2022, Josh certainly has bags of potential when fully fit. He’s hoping that he’ll be able to start getting some speedwork in soon and can then build for a good cross country season. The Bournemouth AC team organisers will no doubt be hoping he can turn out for the club in some of the fixtures as that be a massive boost for the senior men’s squad.