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Entries will definitley be available on the day for this scenic, undulating 10 mile race around Adel and Eccup reservoir (North Leeds). Full details available here: http://www.abbeyrunners.co.uk/Races/eccup10.html

Come along and join us, we'd love to see you there!

Hi Blef,

This is definitely NOT a road race! There is about 1k on tarmac, but the rest of it is on (mostly good) tracks and fields. There are a couple of hills (including a long, steady climb at about 8.5k) and a short section that is likely to be pretty muddy. I would recommend trail shoes, although road shoes should be OK unless it really pours down between now and Sunday. Enjoy!

Don't get me wrong, I can be as obsessive as the next man (or 'far out hippy chick' for that matter): driving round the course the day before, poring over the route on Google Earth, checking out the predicted wind speed and direction, etc. etc.

However, when the race starts, I generally don't feel the need to wear something on my wrist that makes an irritating bleep every mile or km (yes I know that you can turn the sound off, but nobody else ever does, do they?) and tells me what pace I'm running the whole time. I know what pace I'm running: generally as fast as I can sustain for the race distance, thank you. If I can go faster, I will. If I have to slow down, so be it. My finish time will usually be the best that I can manage on that day, on that course and in those conditions. I'm certainly no 'elite athlete', but I've worked with a few who are (or were) and I've rarely seen any of them use a Garmin in a race (on some training runs, yes, but that's a different story altogether).

Sorry Cheerful Dave, couldn't resist stirring up a bit more controversy!

But doesn't it make you laugh when you get people turning up to races carrying Garmins, iPods, mobile phones, etc.? A race should be you against the course and/ or the other competitors, not a display of technological one-upmanship.

And as for the tired rants along the lines of "this was supposed to be a 10k race: my Garmin measured 10.07k so the race director should be taken out and shot"... Not that this applies in this case, where the Race Organisers have clearly made a real mistake.