I ran this race in 1989 and 1990, and had wanted to go back but it always seemed to clash with other things. This year I finally made it. I'm an hour slower nowadays, but that just gave me time to take a few photographs on the way round . .

the first couple of miles are crowded as we sort ourselves out . . on the left running alongside the golf course . . and on the right it's single file through the rape seed . .

at about 6k we cross this poppy field . . the photo doesn't really do it justice . .

and then we thread our way through this cornfield at about 10k . .

and just over half way . . another poppy field that looked much better in real life . .

finally, the last climb . . not as steep as many we'd encountered earlier but tough enough . . it's the same rape seed field we were queuing to get through in one of the earlier photos . .