try harder.'This event is one of the venerable fixtures in the UK race calendar. Long renowned for its riverside route and early start (8:20am), the breakfast run always draws a big crowd, and this year total numbers topped the 3,000 mark for the first

and plenty of runners who'd travelled a distance to take part.The route, run mostly on roads but with a small trail section through some woods and a mile-long stretch across Hinton Airfield, was encouraging enough to induce a gung-ho approach, but with more

for next year, as well as working up contingency plans in the unlikely event of repeat weather. It would be churlish to dwell on the negatives of what was overall an impressive event that is undoubtedly a great thrill to run under normal conditions

.Organised by the team behind the London Marathon, the Great City Race is a 5K that brings out the primal instinct in most of the 6,000 or so runners who attend this sellout annual summer event.Although it is an individual race, the USP here is the chance to compete