Legend has it that the Great Brook Run has its roots in the first great Viking invasion of Chadlington.

Having invaded the Dorset coast, the Vikings moved north raping and pillaging all the mamals in their way, often twice. Then, on December the 26th 1066 they came across the small Cotswold village of Chadlington and a daunting natural obstacle which would confound their progress conquering West Oxfordshire for the next 56 years - The Brook!

The villagers congragated on one shore of The Brook and taunted the Vikings camped on the other. Infuriated, the Vikings looked for ways around the raging torrents but were bewildered to find that The Brook was almost two miles long - far too long to navigate their horn helmetted Hagars around. They tried to dam the Brook at its source, but it was quite cold.

In frustration, the Vikings captured some of the cleverest people alive at the time, brought them to Chadlington and demanded they "fix it, or it's off to Ikea with you". Galileo was summoned and brought telescopes to spy on the Chadovians who were almost 6ft away, Michelangelo to invent helicopters, paint ceilings and stuff - even Julius Caesar came but only succeeded in inventing a chicken salad which everyone agreed was quite nice but possibly a bit fattening. Eventually the Vikings concluded the only way please Thor and get the guidance they needed for victory was to sacrifice a virgin from Banbury in his honour. They're still searching for one of those to this very day.

Then, on the 27th of December 1384 they realised The Brook was only 18 inches deep, walked across and killed everyone.

2,000 years later, two men were getting drunk in a pub. Adam Engberg (a Viking descendent) and James Kelly (from "Up North") decided that an annual, nay yearly, event was required "To celebrate Chadlington's Proud, Violent and Brave repulse of the Viking Terror" which lasted nearly 500 years on the shores of The Brook. "Never, in the field of human conflict, has so much been owed by so many to so few", said Winston Churchill about something else.

Anyway, that night, amongst the Cotswold Lager induced mists of kicking out time, The Great Brook Run was born.

Devised to replicate the charge of those original Chadovites bravely screaming "Run Away! Run Away!" as the Vikings crossed The Brook, the run takes modern day villagers a whopping half mile across mud soaked fields before stopping abruptly, as they did 3000 years ago, turning around and running back along a half mile section of The Brook on the realisation that the pub's still open after all.

It should be noted that nearly all historians think the above account needs some work before it can be verifed, although I still have the till receipt showing I was in the pub that night, so it must be true.