The first running of the South of England Open 10K and Championship, held at the grand venue with a long and distinguished history which hosts international grand prix events. An honour to run in a race at this venue, we were anticipating a quality field to challenge some of our best runners such as Sid Delara!

The small field of participants gave the feeling of a low-key event as we lined up. Lining up for VRUK were: Sid Delara, Peter Simpson, Teresa Webb, Chloe Vincent and Andrew Knight. One other vegan present and notably the fastest was Matt Woodman. Sid Delara has been lowering his personal bests in 2009 for the 5K & 10K and Peter Simpson has recently been running at his season's peak form. The pace was fast as we completed a lap of the track before heading out of the stadium complex and into Crystal Palace Park for three laps. We were soon confronted by a steep climb followed by a short break before another less steep climb. It took a while to recover but we were helped by a long descent before another short sharp climb not far from the stadium.

Sid Delara soon led the way for VRUK followed surprisingly by Andrew Knight who open a 20 metres gap on Peter Simpson but by the start of the second lap that had closed and Peter was 2nd VRUK just before the climb. Sid was some 50 metres or so ahead and was increasing his lead over Peter. Into the third lap we were lapping the slowest runners which gave us confidence. By the time Peter entered the track, Sid was already halfway down the home straight on the far side. Matt Woodman had long since finished in 36.28 (overall 21st), about 6 minutes ahead of Sid (42.10) and Peter (42.47), Andrew Knight was a further two minutes back in 44.51 followed by Chloe Vincent our first female in 47.44 and Teresa Webb in 59.26.