East Devon Juniors represented Devon orienteering Club in a National Club competition, writes Tess Stone.

The event is called the Peter Palmer relay and took place in Sutton Park in Sutton Coldfield.

The team made the journey by train on the Saturday as the there was a very early start time of 5am for the competition, the next day; meaning the first two runners were running in the dark! The team named themselves The Farming Community, as they are all from East Devon.

There were 28 teams and Devon came 17th, which for their first time at this sort of event was really good.

The team consisted of Ellie Stone (16) from Woodroffe School, Grey Greirson (15), Kit Greirson (17) and Zak Francis (17) from The Kings School , Emily Keenan (13) and Jack West (13) from Sidmouth College and Jonty Eaton Hart (13) from Colyton Grammar School.

Ellie Stone ran the first leg and the team were all up at 4.30am to give her support!

The youngster finished her 5.2km section (all run in the dark on the red course) in a time of 56:22 and then handed over to Grey Grierson who also did the red course of 5.2km in 36:21 – she ran at dawn – and next off was Emily Keenan who tackled the light green course (4.1km) in 56:12.

Zac Francis did leg four, the orange course of 3.2km in a time of 37:21. Then Jonty Eaton Hart and Jack West tackled leg five on the yellow course (2.3km) in 20:44 before Kit Grierson completed the sixth and final leg which was green (6km) in 51:34.

The Devon teams time overall was one of 4:19:04 hours and the winners were the South Yorkshire Orienteering Club.

So if you would like to try the thrill and challenge of Orienteering come along to training sessions on Friday evenings, this week at Salcombe Hill (car park opposite the Observatory), meeting 4.30pm through to 6pm.

It is a great sport to be part of combining the endurance of running and the mental challenge of finding the best route to each of your controls on the map.

The coaching session concentrate on a certain skill or navigational technique each week. To find out more call Tess Stone on 01297 20773 or email: plum.pebble@gmail.com