The Goring & Woodcote 10K Medal

Peoplerun keeps on running, and more new feet are joining! On Sunday (9 January), seven runners took to the rural roads of Oxfordshire to support the project in the Goring & Woodcote District 10K and it’s fair to say this one was a toughie.

This time out the runners were: Andy (Race 2), Sim (2), Mulbs (2), Gav (2), myself (2) and two first time Peoplerunners, Rachel and Sam. You’ll see the whole group in the pic below. Thanks to all of you and well done for getting around! It was great to have more people involved and it could have been more, but for Si and Craig’s respective illness and injury. It was also nice to meet @wannabe_runner who popped over to say hi ahead of the race – good luck with your half marathon!

If you’ve not had a chance to run this race in previous years, it comprises of approximately 3k downhill, 2k of flat and 5k of up, up, up, the last 3 of which were at the end of the race and proved by far the most punishing part of the course.

That said, we had a lovely dry and sunny day free of significant breeze, so it made for great runing conditions. Part of the course remained in the shade throughout because of the trees lining the route and this left an icy, slippery film on the road so we had to exercise caution on the downhill sections and battled with other racers to stick to the grippier verges on the uphill.

The Goring & Woodcote 10K Team (L-R): Gav, Mulbs, Andy, Dan, Rachel, Sim & Sam

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to see the official times come through for all of the runners before we had to leave the event (they aren’t listed on the organiser’s website either) so we can’t list them. Let’s just say that, despite the very tricky uphill elements, we were all pretty pleased with how quickly we managed to get around and there were some (unofficial) improvements over the first run in November :0)

Sir John Madjeski was there to start the race and cheer us on at the end

On the fundraising front, things are ticking along steadily. We’ve now passed the 10% point and this is encouraging but there’s still a lot of money left to raise. We’ve already recruited 3 new runners for our next event, the Eastleigh 10K on 27 March, apparently one of the fastest (i.e. flattest) 10K races in the UK. We’d love to get more people joining us, so if you fancy setting yourself a personal challenge and raising a some money for a great cause along the way, get you application form submitted!

And on a final note, thanks to everyone who’s suggested or added tracks to run to for our Spotify alternative workout playlist. Yet again it did just the job for helping to keep our runners legs and arms pumping around the course and, as I write, I’ve noticed a fresh batch of new additions from a couple of other Spotify users. If that was you, thanks and keep ‘em coming!

Don’t forget, if you’d like to sponsor our team as we continue the project all you need to do is click on the just giving totaliser on the right of this page. Every penny counts and it is massively appreciated.

Thanks for reading,

Dan.