Race Report: The Trunce 11 May 2026 - A View from the Back

Thanks to Angela for this report from a recent Trunce fell race.

I don’t do mud, I’m not particularly keen on hills and the idea of three river crossings with my little legs was a scary prospect so I can only put it down to guilt on Dom’s birthday that I found myself being driven to the little village of Oxspring about an hour away to take part in one of his favourite events, The Trunce.

The Trunce is a series of off road races that takes place throughout the year. Each season there are 9 races. The race route is just over 4 miles and involves three river crossings and about 400ft of climb and descent. You get points if you finish in the top 20 of your age category and points for beating your previous PB.

Six of us made the journey to the third race of the season on a sunny, but not particularly warm evening. There’s plenty of parking in a field which is well marshalled. Upon arrival you need to register, which is to just give your race number and £3 cash to the guys and make your race number with a marker pen. You register once and keep the same number forever more which was quite cool as a number of participants have had special shirts made with their numbers printed on them (an idea for Dom’s birthday next year perhaps…)

Dom told me that it’s great fun, but there is a really hard hill. If Dom is describing a hill in anything remotely negative then it must be bad!

Lauren and I took our ‘party at the back’ positions declaring that there was no benefit in going too fast as you get points for beating your PB next time. We decided that less than an hour would be a good target. My new running mantra that is currently serving me quite well is ‘Don’t die, don’t cry’, I’ll admit that it’s quite a low bar, but it takes the pressure off and, to be honest, I just want to get to the end of my runs and be happy rather than hating life which has been the case on many events over the last couple of years!

As is usually the case with being at the back you only hear a mumble when the officials are talking, there’s often an applause that we have no idea what it’s for and a few sentence fragments that float our way. Yesterday all I heard was “we gave them some money too so that’s nice”.

The juniors get set off first and then when they are a safe distance away they unleash the adults, the juniors complete a shorter course without the wet feet.

The start is uphill for a bit before going to a narrow track where we almost walked to the familiar photo gate where we enjoyed the respite of an orderly queue. The ground was very uneven with narrow paths, tree roots, wonky cambers, rocks and stiles made for longer legs than mine.

The first river crossing is quite early in the route and is erm “refreshing”, its’ really shallow though and although the banks are muddy they aren’t particularly steep.

The second river crossing was the one I was worried about with the friendly advice of “if you get stuck in the middle of the river just shout and someone will help you”, Dom said it’s above his knee so I reckoned that was mid-thigh for me. Again, the trickiest bit was getting in with some big rocks there to navigate as you walk through. I’m not sure if the photographer here was to double up as a lifeguard or was just waiting for someone to take a dunk?

I can’t remember the route particularly well and auto stop on my watch wrecked it a bit but it was just a mix of all sorts. The final climb back up seemed relentless, we had already said we were walking the two big hills, but it felt more like crawling at times with some cheeky false summits. Lauren was right behind me though, whispering sweet nothings in the form of positive comments to keep us going. It was reminiscent of my Bestwood sub 30 with Jay being the mental coach. She was right though, “we are amazing!”.

The wall at the top of the hill was more of a challenge on my jelly legs that it should have been and I declared enthusiastically to the marshal that I loved him when he told us it was genuinely all downhill now!

The last kilometre and a bit was all downhill as promised and in true KADS style, Lauren and I were met by Coach Sam to run us in, with the rest of the gang cheering us in just before the finish. Lauren’s positive mantras clearly worked as she left me in her dust at the end, we were in the same age category as we discovered earlier, so fair play! There’s no mercy when the funnel is in sight, I just couldn’t keep up!

247 adults and 26 juniors took part last night with the first adult finisher coming in at 25:30 and the final finisher being 1:07:16

Our team on the night finished as follows-
Ryan 26th place in 31:41, 10th in VM, 11 points
Dom 54th place in 35:19, 22nd in SM, 0 points
Sam 146th place in 44:21, 9th in VF, 12 points
Bev 167th place in 47:17, 3rd VF60, 18 points
Lauren 229th place in 56:48, 30th VF, 0 points
Angela 232nd place in 56:58, 31st VF, 0 points

So how was it? It was blooming tough!

I finished 232nd out of 247 runners in 56:58 so I’m happy. As the path narrows so quickly, we definitely lost some time by starting right at the back, we did overtake a fair few people when it got wider. It also didn’t feel like we were slow in finishing or holding anyone up, which has been the case on some events where I’ve had marshals packing away signs before people have gone past on the second lap. I do absolutely think it’s suitable for anyone who can run a league race, it’s not at all easy but you’ll feel really proud of yourself afterwards!

After changing into dry shoes and socks and layering up we went to the pub for a well-earned drink. The pub opens specially for the Trunce so it’s nice to say thanks in that way as they let us use their toilets before the start.
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The verdict-
Did I enjoy it? A teeny bit I guess, it was really hard.
Am I glad I went? Absolutely, you have to give it a go.
Do I recommend it? Yes, it’s something really different and a great personal challenge for anyone.
Would I do it again? Well, I got a cup of tea and chocolate at the end so that’s a strong maybe.