Just came back from SEAA XC Champs in Hampstead Heath. Great race, amazing supporters (even more impressive than last year). And by amazing I mean absolutely the loudest and most original supporters I have seen (heard) so far. Check out  some 20 seconds of recorded action here: audioboo recording.

A few thousand photos are being uploaded now, will update here once all done.

All our uploads are now finished, 3960 free photos are online at 42run.com. If you have any photos from the event it’s really easy to share them with the world on 42run.com. Upload your snaps to flickr, tag with runner bib numbers, 42run, seaaxc10 and after submitting them to our group on Flickr your photos will be available to anyone on 42run.com. It’s that simple.

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Unbelievable race, although hard to get to, it was totally worth the effort. I mean who would skip a race where the notes on the map say “This is a military training area. DO NOT TOUCH suspicious objects…”

We have taken a few thousand free photos for you and there was no doubt which would describe the event best. Have a look below and you’ll understand why.

Time

When we first started taking photos in races years ago it seemed that everyone is running for the fun of it, taking it easy, enjoying the views, waving and smiling to the camera. I don’t know when it started to change, but it had to happen pretty fast.

It’s nowhere near what it was these days, everyone is so busy, running somewhere, always late for everything even though they wear those ridiculously large watches. You’d think one can see the time on it half a mile away, but everyone just keeps on looking at them. All the time..

Okay, okay, enough ranting, it wasn’t exactly everyone, some of them looked like really enjoying this fine event – waving and smiling, sprint finishing and taking it easy…all good. But still, why look at those huge watches?

Amazing race. We covered “sister events” of the run – the Midsummer Munro half and Picnic Marathon last year and were seriously impressed, but this race was even more insane. Just think of it – it’s an “early” morning of 1st January, Bank Holiday, the temperature outside is -2°C, bottom of snowy and muddy Box Hill and around 300 people gathered to run one of the toughest courses there is…in fancy dress. Even though the thought of getting out of bed early on the first day of the year didn’t sound fantastic we just couldn’t miss it. And it was so worth it.

A couple of snaps of what you missed below.