I was given some shrewd advice on Saturday evening by a wise, unnamed individual. “I think you should learn the route for tomorrow’s race”. 

For the first time in my life, I chose to ignore this person’s guidance and somewhat inevitably it proved costly. 

For the first 23 kilometres myself and race buddy Neil Jeffries were having a cracking morning in the autumnal sunshine. Running along the beautiful trails, through orchids, woodland, past 5 Norman churches and generally loving life. 

Sadly someone didn’t want our fun to continue and had gone to the effort of leading runners off the correct route. Shortly after the 23k mark, we were tricked to take a left turn by a rogue piece of pink ribbon. They had been carefully placed to guide us around the course, but this rebel had other ideas. It became clear we were lost as we continued up said path, unable to find our way. After a brief discussion we retraced our steps and were glad when we discovered a Run Route sign pointing us in the right direction. Or at least that’s what we thought.

Often it’s the sheep that looked lost in the field, on this occasion it was the 50 or so runners, totally bewildered as to where to go next. To the extent they split up into 3 groups and headed in opposite directions. 

A few of us retraced our steps and thanks to the knowledge of a fellow runner, we found the guilty sign and were back on our way. By now our spirits were dashed, the hills grew steeper, and the sun even hotter. We were defeated. Trudging our way up the final steep incline, our spirits briefly lifted by the beautiful views across Rye. What seemed like a short jog back to the finish line took an age. But conquer it we did and there were excellent times among the Hastings Runners contingent that took part.

In the 30k race Paul Lambert ran a blinder to finish 7th overall. There were age category wins for Kevin Blowers, Tamsin West, Bill Edmondson, Bob Dennis and Sylvia Huggett. Also completing the course were Jamie Kennedy, Sarah Bendle, Charles Bowley, Martin Snape, Darren Kilby, Simon Linklater, Luke Evans, Emily Allchurch, Neil Jeffries, Jamie Hitchman, Annette Fry, Jan Young, Alison Anderson, Sarah Marzaioli, Marie Appleton, Ellie Swaine, Victoria Sims, Helen Rothermel, Helen Munday and Alison Tanner.

I will mention one time from the race. That of Will Withecombe who took on the 15km route, finishing in a time of 1 hour 2 minutes and 41 seconds. An average pace of 4:03 per kilometre. Remember this is a hilly trail race with stiles to negotiate. Bonkers. Will won the race by the way. He often keeps that quiet when people ask him how he fared.

Richard Cross, Ben Sayers and Stephen Slater were the other 3 runners taking part in the correctly marked 15km race.