Sunday, 13 May, broke warm and sunny as Team Univ gathered in Main Quad ahead of this year’s Oxford Town and Gown 10k race.

The excitement was palpable amongst the freshly formed team of students, staff, friends and alumni – including David Meredith (1987, Physiology) and Susan Brooks (1985, Plant Sciences) – especially with those toeing the line for their first ever race. With a short walk to the event village in University Parks to warm up the legs it was soon time for Team Univ to line up with over 4,000 Town and Gown runners for the 10am start.

The course, starting from South Parks Road wound its way through central oxford, passing many of the colleges along the way, before a final 3km stretch back through the relative shade of University Parks to the finish line. Crowd support was, as always, spectacularly encouraging and lovely to see both Bob Maskell, Univ’s Head Porter, along the route, and to receive such a warm and welcoming smile from Terry Thomas (Operations Team), who was volunteering at the finish line.

First across the line for Team Univ was Christian Smith, finishing in a truly impressive 20th overall place. You can see the full results at chiptiming.co.uk

Congratulations and thank you to the 67 members of this year’s Team Univ and their supporters for helping to raise £555 for Muscular Dystrophy UK (you can still donate at justgiving.com), to Louise Wright for her impeccable organisation of the team, and to the Domestic Bursary for organising a very welcome celebratory brunch.

We hope to see even more eager runners joining Team Univ for next year’s event; details closer to the time on our News and Features pages and on Facebook and Twitter. Enjoy the video below and #GoTeamUniv…

Published: 14 May 2018

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