Cross Country Race in Eton

Today I did the first cross country (XC) league race of the season.

The start was on the Eton side of the River Thames. Despite the fairly strong wind below across the river we could still hear the bugle for the minutes silence at the local Remembrance Day events while we all observed it.

The race started with a lap of about 400m around a field before going along a footpath next to the river for over a mile before going on a road briefly then round the edge of a large field and then along a footpath to the river. It then followed the same route back to the start until near the end which used a different entrance to the field where the start/finish was.

On my GPS device there was only 80ft of ascent on the whole run which was 5.9 miles (9.5 km).

It was flat and the off road sections where following a footpath so you ended up going single file most of the way and occasionally you could (if possible) overtake someone. So I decided to go off fast for me and see how long I could keep the pace for. I ended up doing it in about 46:30 (forgot to stop my watch after crossing the finish line) which is about 7:45 minutes per mile.

This is fairly fast for me especially as I have only done one short (10km / 6.2 miles) running race this year, although I have ran these distances in races at an end of a triathlon.

Now this year I have started and/or finished a race on the Windsor side, Eton side or in the River Thames within a 100m section of the river.