The 2018 was the inaugural Round Donny Run and whilst the idea is a great one and the route generally a lovely, scenic route, it needs a few improvements to be a truly good race.

The race is a multi-stage race with walking sections between the 9 running ones. It is obviously styled on the hugely successful Round Sheffield Run which I've run several times and is one of my favourite races of the year.

The positives of the race were:

Easy on the day registration

A useful email with pre race instructions the week and then the day before the race

A generally lovely, scenic route

A great T-shirt and medal

Fabulous marshals who were obviously runners and were really supportive, encouraging and helpful despite standing out in the sun for hours on one of the hottest days of the year

The organisers responding to weather conditions by adding additional water stations and very welcome sponge stations on the route

In my opinion the areas for improvement are:

The race was advertised as 30k but was actually 22 miles which is a big difference in very hot conditions. I don't know if the running sections were 30k but this should've been made clear

We had no idea how long each running and walking stage were or at what distance the drink stations were which made pacing really difficult and meant you were never sure when the next break was or how much longer you needed to make your water last (Round Sheffield Run in contrast gave out details of the stage distances on a handy card at the start of the race). The marshals also had no idea how long the next sections were!

Although maps of the route were posted on Facebook, they were difficult to follow, weren't in any sort of order and meant that the stage distances and routes were unclear (this could easily be improved by having the running and walking stages in order on the website, which would also allow route recces before the race)

Pre race communication on social media gave the impression of being inclusive and a way to increase race distance due to the walking stages. A friend emailed the organiser about whether the walking stages would be timed and have enforced cutoffs and was advised no, as long as people weren't ridiculously slow. However the final race instructions referred to slower runners as those likely to take 3-4 hours (which for me for 22 miles is fast!) and an email sent the night before the event advised people to take care in the expected hot conditions (on the day the on the course temperature reached 32.7C) but then for the first time mentioned the race would have a 5 hour cut-off and a on-course cut off at a the start of stage 7 of 3:45. There was no detail of the mileage of the 3:45 cut off point. Whilst this cut off would usually not be a problem for me, the walking sections and very hot conditions meant I was outside the cut off. In the end I was allowed to finish the run, but it was unsettling to be told during stage 5 that as I would miss the 3:45 cut off I would be pulled from the course at the next checkpoint (despite at that point having quite a few people behind me, some of who were eventually DNFs).

The course wasn't well marked in places and a large group of runners got lost on stage 2 and ended up adding an additional 2 miles to the run. This also meant that they had to climb over a 6 foot fence to gain access to cross a lock across a canal which had been left open and had a supervised crossing for the other runners.

The water stations were enthusiastically staffed and the sponges were fabulous, but the water itself was poor. A few bottles of water were available but they were at the bottom of the sponge bucket and we were encouraged to take smaller water containers instead - it seemed to be "only take the water bottles if you're desperate because they are in short supply". The foil sealed water containers were of the type you get on aeroplanes and had a strange taste to them - one ifomy friends noticed on the last water station that they were out of date! I would have struggled with the water if my parents hadn't met me on the course with 2 litre bottles of water to replenish those I was carrying in a race vest.

I'm sorry if the review seems too negative. The race had lots of positives and I would definitely do the race again if things were improved. The aim of my review is to provide constructive feedback which leads to one of my more local races being as great as it could be.