RunGatwick taking place today

RunGatwick, returns to Crawley today (apologies for any road closures in advance), giving local residents the chance to do a 10k in their home town.

I always feel a certain amount of joy when it’s taking place, having played a role in bringing the event to Crawley.

I can’t claim that it was my idea, it was a council officer who first suggested trying to get an annual race in the town and thought of approacing RunSeries to see if they would be interested in organising the event. However, they wanted political support to help cut through the barriers with other public bodies and to secure council support in-kind for the first couple of years of the race.

As a general rule, I’m keen to enable as many different types of events as possible to take place in the town, so that residents can enjoy a range of experiences, so I was keen on the idea of having a 10k (and at the time a half marathon as well) in Crawley.

At the time ParkRun had lured me into becoming a regular runner in the warmer months and having participated in several of RunSeries’ RunReigate half marathons, I had a high degree of confidence in the team, so was happy to lend my support. I will spare you any pictures of the somewhat grisly sight of me participating.

There was positive feedback all-round in response to the first RunGatwick, although for my part local elections got in the way of training, so my own time ended up fairly poor.

Unfortunately, after the first two half marathons, the pandemic struck and due to the much higher costs involved in organising a half marathon, when RunGatwick returned it was solely as a 10k race. Nonetheless, today residents still have the opportunity to participate in a fun long distance race in their own town, and for that reason, I’m always glad when I see RunGatwick is taking place.