West London 10K is London's newest road race – held in the magnificent 185 acres of Gunnersbury Park – and edition number one at 10:30am on Saturday 2 December 2023 saw 626 finishers in just over 90 minutes of thoroughly enjoyable racing.

West London 10K is the love child of the multi-award-winning Ealing Half Marathon and Osterley Park 10K, with the same hallmarks as those established and well-organised events. Participants enjoyed an event run by runners for runners, with plenty of enthusiastic marshalls and a great course that simply shouts: "Come and race me".

Gunnersbury Park is positioned between Acton, Brentford, Chiswick, and Ealing. Wikipedia tells us it was purchased from the Rothschild family and opened to the public by Neville Chamberlain, then Minister of Health, on 21 May 1926. The park is dominated by the museum housed in the 1663-built Palladian mansion Gunnersbury House.

The course is a cracker, with the start and finish right in front of the main house. It begins with a small lap of 2K, followed by two full laps of 4K each on the perimeter path, past the formal gardens and horseshoe-shaped lake that make this park such a popular place to visit.

The inaugural course record of 31:53 was set by the reigning Ealing Half Marathon champion Elias Ahmed (Ealing, Southall & Middlesex AC) who holds a 31:26 PB for 10K set in the Vitality London 10,000 last year. Elias enjoyed a comfortable victory ahead of Oliver Teenan (Thames Valley Harriers, 34:45) and Tom Green (Ealing Eagles, 35:01).

Torzi Robinson (Oxford University AC, 41:10) took the women's race and set the time to beat, followed onto the podium spots by unattached athletes Pip Lewis (43:16) and Crystal Hirschorn (45:09).

More than 170 ran faster than 5:00/km pace and 400 beat the hour to give this brand new event a great baptism.

Full results are available avia runABC South's comprehensive race listing service here.

Photo of delighted race officials courtesy @EalingHalf on X, formerly Twitter