A village cross-country race, held to raise money for local charities. Hoby is only 4 miles from Gaddesby, but unlike the Gaddesby Gallop https://forum.fellrunner.org.uk/show...addesby-Gallop which is held in December, there was no mud at today's Hoby Hop; or at least, the mud was baked hard.

We were set off in waves of just 12 runners, not principally because of Covid, but to avoid congestion at the first stile, only about 200 metres from the start. Actually, a runner with good stile style could make up a lot of time on their competitors on this course, as there were quite a lot of stiles.

I was in the 9th and last wave, and had the unusual experience of overtaking quite a lot of other runners, without ever being overtaken myself. The course is roughly in the shape of a back-to-front letter P, with the start and finish at the bottom of the stem of the P. The challenge as I saw it was to get onto the loop of the P before the fastest runners from the early waves met me on their way back to the finish; I failed this one.

The race was won by Tim Hartley, aged 52. He's a sort of Leicestershire version of Ian Holmes: into his 50's but still hasn't worked out how to not win a race.