We entered Friday with tiring legs and the prospect of running just over two miles on the sandy undulations of Brickhill Woods looming before us having run every evening all week. The good thing was that in just over two miles the finish would be in sight, with just a final run round Willen Lake on Saturday between us and the finish.

Although Friday’s run is certainly hilly, it’s not the steepness that makes it hard. It is constantly either up or down, with lots of twists and turns, narrow paths and tree roots and stumps to look out for. It was a cool, dry and light evening that was actually pretty good for running a short distance and everyone wanted it over with quickly read more

Day four of this year’s tour saw the field migrate to Campbell Park for one of the two courses that haven’t changed in many years. The route consists of a very fast start down the belvedere hill to the canal and then a long drag back up to the top before a second lap repeat to get it up to about 4.4 miles.

Elliot, Andy, Tom, Jo and Fiona were all on their fourth race, while Tim had registered a time for the course earlier in the week as he was unable to make the run on Thursday. These six were then supplemented by a few guest appearances from Pete Mackrell, Chris Norman and Adam Haylock who seemed to have forgotten that this is a hideous race and certainly not one to choose to run! read more

As a bunch of seniors within our club, we are very gradually improving when it comes to running short distances at high pace (relatively), but it is still a long way from our safe ground of 10K’s, half marathon’s and cross-country. Therefore the idea of rocking up to Stantonbury and doing a flat out mile is not that appealing to most of us. It is a small step into the unknown, but if ever you want to just see how fast you can do a mile then the middle of the Tour of MK is the place to do it. read more

By Fiona Towell

Fab Run. Loved it.

Felt the usual ‘What am I doing and why I am I here?’ vibes at the start as Mr Wasdell’s horn set us all off to inspect the ditch on our way to the start (on a hill).

I Took my place in the middle of the back half at the side of the field as it’s always a good idea to have other people in front of you as an excuse for slowing you down as you warm up (I don’t generally do that on anything over 1 mile)

It wasn’t too cold and the massive muddy puddle didn’t have too many cow pats in it. Always look for the positives in every X-Country event 😉 read more

The first race of the MK Tour is rarely a cagey affair. Everyone thinks they are going to take it easy and save themselves for later in the week, but as soon as the gun goes tactics go out of the window and it becomes like any other race. “I’ll worry about tomorrow’s race tomorrow” becomes the order of the day.

The first major surprise was to see Stu Blofeld with a pair of trainers on. He struggled to get his legs moving horizontally rather than in a circle, but did enough to get around the 11K course in 47:58 and intends on doing one or two more of the series. Others who were there on day one, but haven’t committed to the full tour yet were Graham Magill, whose 46:19 earned him 32nd place out of 111 finishers and Chris Norman whose crazy training schedule seems to be paying dividends as he powered round the second half to come home 7th in 39:01. read more