The 31st Surrey Hills Race and Trail Challenge

Monday 26 May 2008

Organiser’s report

The Surrey Hills Race is a hill race organised along the lines of an orienteering event: we do not provide marshals or markers. We expect runners to navigate, and we encourage them to recce the route beforehand. Despite our making this clear on all the publicity for the race, the number of competitors on the 30 km/18 mile course who retire or who record very long times shows that some do not heed this advice!

For the third successive year we had poor weather. In 2006 we had brilliant sunshine interspersed with hailstorms; last year it was very cold (4^oC on the hill tops) and wet (horizontal rain!); this year it was just wet and windy – indeed overnight storms had resulted in the access roads to the further control sites being blocked by fallen trees.

Running conditions were in fact quite pleasant, but the organisers were very glad to have been able to book The Priory School this year as race HQ. As a result far more runners than in previous years stayed for the prize-giving.

This was the first year in which we took entries online, and the increase in the number of pre-entries shows this to be a popular option (though we had a very high number of ‘no-shows’, probably because of the poor weather forecast: 88 runners, 25 no-shows – 113 in total).

As ever, thanks go to all the helpers, the land-owners, the staff of The Priory School and to the competitors for taking part. I do encourage you to join us again next year!

Ginny Catmur (SLOW and Elmbridge Road Runners)

Report posted 2 June 2008