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Roman Road Race
Saturday 17th March 2018
Alex Downie
Even in the bitingly cold winds brought over by the Minibeast from the East, the 9.5 miles of Cambridge University Hare and Hounds' Roman Road Race turned out to be a real romp. Paradoxically, the terrible temperatures seemed to act more as a stimulant than a deterrent and the significant sidewinds felt more tail than head, which never seems to happen when running (or, indeed, cycling).
Does the sheer joy of this race derive from the fact that is that rare thing, an A to B, and, if so, why should that be, I wonder?
Yes, many thanks then to our friends at CUHH, who despite organising the formidable Boundary Run the previous week, still found time to hire the coach which took a somewhat motley cohort of Hares and Hounds, Cheshire Tally Ho-ers and C+Cers out to Horseheath to try and make their way back to Worts Causeway, Cambridge in handicap groups.
Personally, I've gone off road races a bit, but I like to make an exception of this one because, well, the traffic was light - just the odd passing chariot - and it was soft underfoot, actually far too soft in places, aka a mudbath. Historians have put this 'rewilding ' of the road down to, er, Rexit, a term used to describe the Roman exit from Britain, with a resultant reduction of foreign investment, expertise and labour, the first signs of which noted by despairing Britons were the increasing number of unrepaired potholes in the road system......the harbingers of a very long decline of public infrastructure, which was to last for centuries, including multiple invasions........
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