Finstock 10k

Unlike another race taking place today, we didn't have boring, crowded, tarmacced urban highways: instead we ran along twisty gravel paths strewn with leaves and conkers in the scenic Cornbury Park. The cloudy but bright weather was just right for running and for showing off Autumn in the Park.

The course consists of one large lap and one smaller lap and is undulating with several short sharp hills. The only repetition is the last 3K which is great as it means that from 7K onwards you know what's going to happen and can easily pace the rest of the race.

The race was well organised and well marshalled; all the marshals had encouraging words when I passed them.

The photo has a sign that you should give way to aircraft: before the race a runner from Charlbury had explained to me that the owner (Lord Rotherwick) uses one of the paths as a landing strip. His wife (Lady Tania Rotherwick) was the third woman to finish.

There's some video footage of the event on the www.witneytv.co.uk website. It includes scenes of people milling around before the start, interviews with Sally Howard and Lady Rotherwick, and some shots of the start of the main race and the children's race.

Besides the conkers, I saw two peacocks and a large collection of deer. I saw these in my warming-up: they'd gone by the time I reached them in the race!

The above photo was taken by Garrett Coakley. It is copyright Garrett Coakley and released with a Creative Commons licence.