It was the day before Star Wars day, so the Force was strong today with the runners at the Fields - although disappointingly no-one arrived dressed as either Darth Vader or a StormTrooper...to be fair it's a (nearly) fifty year old film, which probably ages me more than today's youthful participants...

Run Director Rue was determined to put a little more structure into today's set up - so we had a specific area for the barcode scanners and then, interestingly, he'd laid out cones in a double rectangle "for the warm up" - which proved successful as long as you paid close attention to the instructions.

Grateful for the "volunteer parents" who stepped in at the last minute to don the high viz, and helped by an increasing number of DoE pupils on finish tokens, timekeeping and barcode scanning duties, we were good to go on the dot - Hilary was at her regular Turn 1 spot, and Nick on timekeeping duty.

8 and a little bit minutes later (the Force was strong with this one), our first placer crossed the line, closely followed three seconds later by our regular visitor from Milton Keynes - and soon a steady stream were sprinting down the sunny finishing straight, with this week's tailwalker, Maria who'd come all the way from West London (thank you) and then set off to walk back to Hounslow, crossing the line to complete another successful week of running at the Fields - 12 PBs were set today, just over a quarter of the field. Great work all round.

Same time next week under the Big Tree, where the Force will continue to be strong...