chance to get warmed up, used to running in the heat - and to check out the competition. In 2009 I'd felt chuffed with my 9 minute/mile pace in the 6K, which would put me in the main pack of most of the big city races I'd done back in the UK. In Cyprus

defeated and walking from 8K.This year, I decided to stay cool and calm and take it at a pace I knew I could sustain (and hope that didn't mean I'd come last). To walk the uphills and run the flats. To chill out and enjoy the view. And you know what, I

’ll have the field of the 10-mile event for company for most of the course.Of course, if the friendly atmosphere’s not enough to keep your spirits up, the thought of the finish in Wymondham’s pretty marketplace will. Enter online nowMad March 20 (Hampshire

's 'big hill'.This UK Athletics bronze-graded event comes with supervised bag storage, tidy changing facilities and T-shirts for all entrants, as well as refreshments, which might well include a repeat of last year's coveted bacon sandwiches

heavy in my legs. If that wasn't the perfect finish to my Cyprus Challenge, a clanging sign of how much I can get back out of the training I put in - and motivation to keep running - I don't know what is.Time: 1:11:59Pace: 11:41/milePosition: 339/343

plantations to the finish - a pretty beach overlooking sea caves. It is a flat route, but the deceptively tricky challenge of the time trial is to stick to your pace. Rather than a mass start, runners start 10 seconds apart in random order - which can feel

Appeal, and you’ll bag a medal – and perhaps a PB too.Filling Up Fast...Liverpool Santa Dash, December 6Liverpool Santa Dash 5K (December 6) Join thousands of Santas charging through the bustling streets of Liverpool in this atmospheric event.Trionium New

) Three laps of a rolling road course, and your penultimate chance to run a UK marathon in 2008. Not feeling up to the full distance? Take the relay option... --Wokingham Half-MarathonFilling Up Fast…OK, so these events might be weeks away, but you'll need

race in Cambridgeshire'.Each lap of this road race means another chance to see the inspiring views of the Fenland countryside from the summit of the course's 'big hill'.This UK Athletics bronze-graded event comes with supervised bag storage, tidy

. The 10K route takes entrants on three fast laps through the zoo’s flat parkland, with the exotic menagerie of the zoo’s collection keeping runners entertained as they tour the park. All profits from the event are donated to the Zoological Society