Report by Peter Simpson:

In the days leading up to our Watford meet-up on Sunday, 3 October, the weather forecast was for persistent if not heavy rain for this area but come the day it was only light if raining at all. Six of us met up although it was not all ‘plain sailing’ with two refreshment points in the park, one outdoors (kiosk) and an indoors cafe. With the car park near the kiosk, three of our runners decided to wait there but eventually we all met, starting the session half an hour late. Runners taking part included: Steve Davies, Annette Herold, Hallam Smallpeice, Chris Dziadel and myself. Unsurprisingly one of the topics of discussion was the ironman event.

Given the recent rain, on the whole we remained within the park that could be described as long and thin, about a mile east to west. As planned we varied the session between slow group runs and handicap intervals, stretching ourselves at times. The park also has a long slow climb that we used for hill training. Rounding off the session we ventured onto the Grand Union Canal at the western end where it was a bit muddy at times.

We retired to the cafe where we were pleased to discover at the outset that they catered for vegans.