17th October Kicking up the leaves at Thoresby

With yet another free Sunday morning in the diary it was a chance to slip into my lycra leggings once again, this time to run the Thoresby Leaf Kick. Set within the grounds of Thoresby Hall this was a multi distance event with runners and walkers able to chose from 5km, 10km, 10 mile and half marathon distances, some of which you could run / walk whilst being pulled round by your dog.

Because of the variety of distances to chose from it inevitably meant that the number of entrants for each run would be limited, so much so that arriving at the start I did begin to wonder if I could actually manage the unique feat of appearing in both the top and bottom 10 within the same race. As it turned out a late flurry of runners ensured I did neither.

Under an overcast and misty sky that threatened and occasionally delivered light rain showers, we set off from right in front of Thoresby Hall, heading out onto a relatively flat route that wound its way through the woods, trails, bridal paths and fire rounds around the estate. Compared to some runs that I have done which have spent far too much on hard packed rocky tracks, this one did actually give me the chance to kick some leaves as we ran through autumnal woods. 

The distance signs for the various intersecting routes did cause some initial confusion when I thought / hoped I had completed 5 miles after only actually running 2 km and the sound of some of the faster half marathon runners coming pounding past me did put my rather sedate progress into perspective. But all in all it was a lovely run with a finishing time for 10 miles of an hour and 49mins. Not bad as TOM might say 'for a fatty'.

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