Walking was anyway a lovely way to do it – starting at 8 am before it got too hot and with the leisure to enjoy some spectacular views.

The whole exercise was a superb advertisement for St Albans, and the route itself had the great merit of linking St Albans with Bedmond, uniting the different strands of the constituency. Apart from some occasional unsightly fly-tipping, we went through glorious countryside and woodland.

Not being a clubber of the golf or dancing variety, I confess that I had not been to Batchwood Hall before. The view from there of the skyline of St Albans is simply breath-taking.

The event could not happen without a huge amount of work by council officers and all the uniformed and voluntary groups who provide marshals round the course. My hat off to them all.

And by the way I went round in sub-15 minute miles, completing the route in 3.04 hours and thereby just beating even the fastest of the runners – though I had a head start of two hours on them!