Race Report: Burrator Noir Night Race

We set off into muddy trails and, within minutes—bonk! Henderson smashed his head on a low-hanging branch, snapped it clean off, and the falling branch landed on Craig. Just the first of many laughs.
When we hit the road section, we followed the runners ahead—until two runners suddenly came back towards us. Confusion set in. The four of us carried on to the top of a hill, only to realise there were no reflective markers. We’d clearly gone the wrong way. Back down we went.
Craig insisted he’d seen runners head through a gate into the woods. So through the gate we went, climbing up and down, up and down… straight to a dead end. Back again. Meanwhile, Craig had the map on his watch, but let’s just say he’s no navigator.
Back on the road, a random runner—not even part of the race—came towards us and basically called us idiots before pointing us toward the lake or offered us to go back to his house “stranger danger” We followed his advice and soon bumped into another lost runner, Sam, who decided to stay with us because he didn’t fancy being alone in the dark.
Eventually, we met a marshal, although getting directions out of him was like getting blood from a stone. He eventually pointed us up onto the moors.
By now, we were behind the tail marshals who were clearing the course—and removing the reflective markers—meaning we had nothing to navigate by except Craig’s questionable watch skills. We spotted lights in the distance and headed towards them… only to discover they were cow eyes staring right back at us. 🐄
We finally caught up to the tail marshals, who informed us we were about a mile behind everyone else. Off the five of us trudged, following glow-stick canes sticking in the ground, tripping, slipping, falling, and swearing most of the way.
Eventually, Henderson and Sam (our adopted stray runner) had had enough and sprinted ahead, leaving the three of us behind to continue crossing streams, hopping rocks, and trying desperately to stay ahead of the tail marshals.
Somewhere along the way, James’s headtorch died, so a tail marshal insisted he uses his spare one. Unfortunately, the spare didn’t fit his peanut-sized head and kept slipping down—cue more laughter.
By this point, we were cold, tired, and fully fed up, but finally we made it to the finish line after clocking just under 14 miles—two extra miles for free!
Time for a hot chocolate and some fruity energy balls (which were amazing). I ended up bargaining with them and buying the last 22 in the jar.
I grabbed a medal from the table and headed home… only to realise later that I’d taken a 10k medal instead of the 12-mile one. 🥇😂
All in all, it was a brilliant evening out on the moors with great running mates—and we laughed most the way.