Oxford is a long way to go for a 10k race I was thinking to myself as I scraped the ice off the windscreen. Why was I bothering? I was still asking myself the same question three hours later as I was pulling on my spikes with frozen fingers. But shortly after the gun as the course took us out of the uninspiring playing fields and up into the woods I had an epiphanic moment; extremities were warming up nicely with the effort and the frozen woods looked glorious in bright winter sunshine, suddenly there was nowhere else that I would rather be.
Three of us had made the trip, all running in the combined M50 and M60 race. On an age graded basis Dave Kitcher was again the star turn, taking advantage of having recently turned 60 to take 5th place. Dave did his usual trick here of taking it easy for the first lap before storming past everyone (including me) on the second.