The Aldi Ashby 20 is due to make its return as a road race next year - after being held 'virtually' in 2021 due to the Covid pandemic.

And it is being billed as the 30th Anniversary event - take two.

It was cancelled at the 11th hour 18 months ago, with the first coronavirus lockdown about to be announced.

But 1,200 entrants took part in this year's virtual event.

Now organisers, the Ashby 20 website says: "Ivanhoe Runners are fully committed in organising the 2022 Aldi Ashby 20, planned for Sunday 20th March. This will be celebrated as our 30th anniversary, 'take 2'.

"For those who don't know, the Aldi Ashby 20 is a 'not for profit' event, organised by runners for runners.

"Recent times have posed some challenges to say the least.

"However, we're in a position to plan next year's event, which will be the 30th anniversary of the actual event taking place.

"Having this opportunity is down to the dedication of our team, our continued support from Aldi, Pladis Everyone Active and other sponsors, the support of the local community, along with our runners understanding of situations being out of our control.

"Without this combination it's likely that the event would not have continued.

"For this we, Ivanhoe Runners, would like to say a huge thank you to everyone involved."

But the organisers are still wary of the pandemic and say much depends on how the country comes back from Covid-19 over the next few months.

The website adds: "Unfortunately, Covid-19 has not gone away.

"Therefore we will be monitoring the situation over the coming months and making some small changes, always taking into account the safety of our runners, volunteers and our local community.

"In order to have a better understanding of the situation over our Autumn period we have decided to delay entries to the event.

"We now plan to open up our entries on Friday 26th Nov for priority entries and Monday 6th Dec, general entries.

"Both entries will start at 7pm on their relative days. By doing this we believe it will place us in good sted to make small tweaks to the event beforehand. Hopefully this will reduce the number of surprises thrown to us all.

"We will be honouring our commitment to our 2020 participants who took the option for a guaranteed 2021 place (now deferred to 2022). Each participant who took this option, will be treated as a priority entry.

"We do anticipate plenty of spaces being available for general entries, opening up on Monday 6th Dec.

"We are sure that you'll understand our decision to delay entries. We will soon be updating our FAQ page with answers to any queries we might get.

"Meanwhile the Aldi Ashby 20 would like to say thanks to you all."