The running duo the 2Ms were out at the weekend MA beautiful English summer's day with a course through lovely lakeside countryside and a start/finish in a lush farmer's field with homemade cake and the local brass band. Apart from the hard race in heat bit, this was a fine way to spend a few hours on a Sunday morning.

A 15 minutes train ride and a free station pick-up and HQ drop-off by an incredibly friendly Wadhurt Runners marshal (his children made the chocolate brownies) in his Landrover and a chat through the course lead to a smooth registration. That set the scene for the whole race, the organisation was impeccable - clear, confident and friendly. It's no surprise this race, despite only being in its 11th year, is consistently in the Runner's World best 50.

A narrow farm track start lead down through very rutted, dusty paths (no rain for days) and into a bumpy, angled field. The ground was a changing mixture of compact dusty earth, dried off-road tyre ruts and chalky gravel - you had to concentrate on where you put your feet, especially in the early stages of close Indian file. The path here was undulating and rooty too so the pack soon thinned out (I've long since learned to recognise and wave goodbye to those that seem to float over broken ground as they drift past). I later saw a few people covered in dust having lost their footing.

Anyway, once we hit the waterside it was a 14 miles, mostly chalk path, anticlockwise lap of Bewl Water reservoir. "Keep the water to your right" was a handy tip: as Martin Brown will testify, my directional sense is dreadful. The course had some shade and the waterstations were well placed and stocked, so it was a matter of drinking and pacing. We'd chatted and entered late, viewing it as a training/progress outing with Mick having concentrated heavily back on the bike recently. I think this is the reason I got closer to him that usual, although normal service was rightly resumed as he passed me at about the 10 mile mark. With the top 100 were given "gold" this was our soft target, so we were both relatively pleased to come in where we did.

Mick Barstow    80th       1:51:53

Mark Evans       85th       1:53:06

598 finished.