So, a warm summer’s evening in July. What better way to spend it than running 10km around the country lanes of Kirkley Hall. As it was effectively a ‘home fixture’, I thought it would be a good race to get the Ponteland Runners vest out for. In fact given that the temperature was around 18º centigrade there was certainly no need for long sleeves or gloves! Its only been my fourth race organised by the Run Nation team, but I’ve already noticed a certain chaotic charm to their events. Last year’s 10km at Matfen had the runners of the 5km race ending at the exact spot and time that the 10km race was beginning, so all the 10km runners were of course obliged to wait and clap everybody home across the finish line; meanwhile at the Bamburgh 10km earlier this year they seemingly forgot to move the transit van that was parked across the start line until one of the eager, young athletes poised at the start line could bear it no longer and had to ask ‘you are going to move that thing aren’t you?’. This race was no different. As everybody was milling around Kirkley Hall going through the registration process, listening to Simon Mayo whose Radio 2 show had somehow been connected on the loud tannoy in the background, it soon became clear that nobody really knew where the start of the race was. With ten minutes to go it was announced that marshals would have to walk us to the starting line. Cue a very pleasant stroll of 165 runners across a meadow, through a kissing-gate and onto what seemed like a blind corner on the road to Morpeth. Concerns about cars speeding up behind us were soon allayed as the race director focused our minds on another sporting event taking place on exactly the same road that evening, namely a bike team sprint event. And sure enough somebody shouted bike, and three guys in lycra came whizzing past us, to be followed shortly after by another set of riders, and then another.. well you get the idea. Apparently this was an improvement on last year though, since on that occasion the riders were going in the same direction as the runners – no problems overtaking on blind corners that night then eh!
Eventually after all the pleasantries somebody said ‘3,2,1’ and I heard a hooter so started running. The course basically headed in a Northerly direction, straight up to Shilvington, and was a steady climb all the way. Everybody must have thought that they were on for a record time going past the 3km marker, but this was sadly because it had been put at the 2km point. I just focused on getting to the top of the hill knowing that after this 5km climb there was a nice downhill section with a water station if needed. Trying to run fast downhill, grab a bottle of water and successfully open it was far beyond my capabilities though, so I just had to tell myself there was only 4km to go and Ogle was coming up fast. A couple of kids on bikes paused by the road side and I was just thinking is this some kind of strange reverse of the climbers on Alpe D’Huez, are they really going to ride along side me all the way to Ogle yelling encouragement/abuse in my ear? Fortunately they had far better things to do with their time and I spied a road sign that said one mile to Kirkley Hall. Trusting that more than the signs put out by Run Nation I got a bit of energy from somewhere and imagined it was just one final Monday night run to Duns Green. As ever there was the obligatory 40 metre sprint finish and then the elation that comes when finishing the race (even if such elation is always slightly tempered by the fact that the sub 35 minute guys already seem to be back in their tracksuits and heading for the car park). But on this warm summer’s evening, the free bottles of water were plenty enough reward, and yet another Run Nation medal to go in my desk draw collection. Roll on the Durham 10 Miler…
