The Creation of the Chalgrove Festival 10K.

David (Sawyer) and I were both keen runners, and even though David still is, I have converted to cycling. We had been attending races round the local area and beyond for quite some time, and began to wonder whether we could put on our own race, as we felt we knew what runners wanted, what would work and what wouldn’t. Thus we met in Red Lion (naturally) one evening in October 2009 to sketch out some ideas. One of my initial thoughts was to incorporate Mill Lane into the course, and we could have called the race The Run Of the Mill.

However, after doing some quick calculations we realised that wouldn’t work, so we soon hit upon the course that we have used ever since the first race on 4th May 2010. We checked it with a bicycle computer, and finally had it measured accurately and officially by the Association of UK Course Measurers, which is how we come to have 217 metres to be covered on the Rec.

The next thoughts were about the day: Saturdays and Sundays are always busy with races, and we would have a lot of competition. But Mondays are not - so we hit upon running the race as part of the Annual Village Festival on Bank Holiday Monday. The Village Festival Committee (VFC) took some persuading, but we convinced them that bringing in several hundred runners and their families would provide a big boost to the Festival’s visitor numbers, not to mention income. Thus we became the Chalgrove Festival 10K.

Then we had to get down to the nitty-gritty of organisation: there seemed to be a thousand and one people who would have to know (and occasionally approve), including Oxfordshire Highways, the Police Service, the Fire Service, the Parish Council, and Berrick and Roke Parish Council to name but a few.

We would also need car parking, medical cover (including paramedics on bikes), a Risk Assessment, portable toilet hire, a licence from Run Britain to validate the race, a bank account, winners’ trophies, other prizes - and t-shirts, which became one of our signature characteristics, and included our own design of Chugman, and latterly Chug-girl, who feature on all the shirts.

Furthermore we’d need advertising, chip timing, water for the runners (half-way round and at the end), many volunteers, food and hi-viz jackets for the volunteers, and sponsors, preferably local businesses.

Most all, we’d need dedicated friends to help. Luckily we persuaded Ian, Dave and Colin, and the five of us set to work, with monthly meetings to tease out all the different things we had to do.

It was very enjoyable, and butterflies rose as the first Race Day drew nearer. For that first race we offered a warm-up routine on the MUGA, and that’s where Race Registration took place (until we eventually moved it into the Community Centre hall). We had spreadsheets of entries, and I used a cut-down version for the commentary as the runners sprinted the last 50m to the finish. We also had a leader’s car, and a broom wagon to follow the last runner home.

The prize ceremony started an hour-and-a-half after the start, and we included a category for runners resident in Chalgrove to encourage participation within the village, and the winners were usually rewarded with a meal at the Red Lion.

It grew from there, and in succeeding years we kept pretty much to the same template. We we were lucky to have fifty or more volunteers every year to set up, marshal, operate race registration, hand out water, dismantle etc. etc., and most years we turned a small profit, most of which was ploughed back into race development, and much of the rest donated to the VFC for the following year's Festival. Other beneficiaries have been Age Concern, the First Steps Children’s Centre, Help For Heroes, the PTA, the School, the Scouts, the WI, and the Youth Club.

Recollections by Chris Leftley