Explosive Times...

I have never laughed out loud in the middle of a race but I did when I spotted the 'for Fawkes sake' sign as I was ploughing up (read speed walking) the final hill of the Guy Fawkes 10 mile race today. And this pretty much summed up the race, which also included signs for the Birstwith Brute at four miles (apparently 15%!) and the Swincliffe ( I think) Swine at about 7 miles. Despite having run this race last year, for some reason, I had completely blanked out the hills, possibly because of the tongue in cheek way they were introduced to runners during the race.

Or possibly because the race is sponsored by Nestle resulting in a fabulous goodie bag filled with chocolate, sweets, coffee, tea and pasta which is presented to each finisher at the end of the race.

Running the race were lots of fellow Eccleshill Road Runners, shown above with Guy Fawkes himself at the end of the race. I travelled over with Gill (and husband, Ian as our chauffeur and photographer), Lisa and Julie who was bravely attempting her first race since succumbing to a nearly three month break from racing due to an injury with her Achilles. I was really pleased to be racing again with my original running crew, and super proud of Julie for being back in the game!

There must have been over 800 runners in the race, which started and finished in the stunning Ripley Castle, just north of Harrogate. It was a little congested at the start but thinned out by mile two, and was a great course with sufficient downhills to negate the beast and swine hills.

Given my recent run of luck running without my watch, I decided to try it again and ran round at a pace which felt like I was pushing myself but not so much that I would run out of steam. I was overwhelmed at the end of realise that I'd managed to run it in 1 hour 35 my new 10 mile PB, knocking eight minutes off last years time!

It's races like this that make me really proud to be part of a running club. The camaraderie is just amazing, with every runner no matter how fast or slow being cheered on and encouraged by fellow members.

And that, I think, concludes my races for 2010 unless I suffer a severe memory loss about the horror of the three Peco XC League Races I naively ran in the 08/09 season and put my name down for any in the forthcoming season...

I am extremely stiff now, and am on leading duty at club tomorrow night for the monthly three mile time trial. A recovery run is in order I think...