WSFRL: Saints and Sinners - Forest Trails Run

I LOVE THE West Sussex Fun Run League, which is hosted by 16 athletics clubs over Sussex, which means I get 16 runs per year.   They are all different but all are beautiful and challenging in their own way.   You don't need to belong to an athletics club to join in, you can look them up on line and book a place for a small amount of money.   You won't get the medal and T-shirt, but you will get a great run.   If you are interested in having a look then click here.

The Tilgate Forest race is hosted by Crawley Saint's and Sinners.   And is a five-mile trail run, best described as undulating and is outstanding, I ran this a few years ago and loved it.   But everthing stopped for COVID and this is the first run since then.

There is a small clearing just off the K2 Leisure Centre, where the 16 Athletics Clubs that makes up the WSFRL set their club flags.   The members get together in a true spirit of community and hand the race numbers out in preparation for the run.

Standing on the start line, in the forest with the ceremonial placing of the flags, we held a united two-minute silence for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II before the start of the run.   It was a proud moment as one era ends and the reign of King Charles III starts.

The run starts almost in a straight line through the forest heading for one of the motorway bridges across the A23.   Once across you start a large loop (not an accurate description of the run, see right).   Using the trails around the forest you run a lot of the time on the soft forest floor that has a real spring in it.   The weather was beautiful and the forest floor was crunchy.

I don't know why but you get to a point in the run where you think you have quite a distance left and suddenly you see the finish line in front of you.   This has happened both times that I have run the event.   I can only put it down to getting lost in the beauty of the forest and enjoying the run, after all somebody put the "fun" in the "fun run league".