Race Date: 6^th October 2019

Report by Tracey Davies

OffTRAC10 organised by Tickhill Running & Athletics Club

Described as a 10 mile multi terrain race around Tickhill, mostly flat and potential PB course.  The course, which is pretty much all off road, comprises of tracks, public footpaths and field boundaries.

Up for grabs in the prize giving:

£60 to the first person to complete the course in under sixty minutes (It’s a rollover)

A pair of ‘On’ trainers to first male and first female.

Trophies for Age category winners.

Plus a sprint finish prize, which had people throwing themselves across the finish line in all manner of ways.

Strider’s own Matt Chappell had the privilege of wearing race number 1 and even had a pre-race interview having missed out on his place last year due to injury.

Having a liking to all things shiny, the first thing that attracted me to this race was the bling, a very tasteful medal indeed.  Closely followed by the attractive description of running through trails and fields of Tickhill, I do love a bit of ‘Off Roading’.Then there was the promise of a post run buffet, backed up by Vicky Hawkins comments ‘the race is worth doing just for the buffet.’ SOLD!

The week leading up to the race was horrific, rain, rain and a bit more rain with the odd flood warning.  The forecast for the day was bleak to say the least and it looked to be another day of heavy rain.  Updates from the organisers warned of changes to the course due to the conditions.

Race day arrived and we were blessed with near perfect weather conditions.  The rain stayed away and it was mainly overcast with the sun breaking through for an occasional brief appearance.

Following the all important ‘Striders’ team photo, the 144 competitors, including 12 Striders, made their way to the starting line.  This was to be the start of a challenging course of mud, bogs, knee deep puddles and swamp like terrain.  Head winds across the vast open turnip fields made it hard going in places, with thick squelching mud claiming a running shoe or two.

It was great fun and thoroughly enjoyable.

The post run buffet lived up to its outstanding reputation, with constant replenishment of quality grub to suit all diet needs, including the sweet toothed, cake lovers amongst us.  The buffet was complimented by this years introduction of a BAR selling a wide range a alcoholic beverages and a good quality mobile coffee van.

Then came the prize giving and after making an off the cuff comment about the possibility of bagging a FV45 prize on the journey there, I intended to stay.  This is where everything came a little unstuck and the frustration set in.  Having been told that the prize giving was imminent a few of us ventured back inside, ever hopeful of a prize.  The numbers steadily dispersed as minutes ticked by until over half an hour later the winners were announced.  I watched as my eagerly anticipated trophy was awarded to a Barnsley Harrier.

Now all we had to do was await the much anticipated posting of the results, with the inevitable searching and checking every 5 minutes for any update.  The frustration grew as Sunday rolled into Monday, then Tuesday with no sign of any results and no updates at all.  Finally, late Tuesday night an update was posted, apologising for the delay and explaining that they had had a few anomalies due to some numbers being mixed up and people running under others details, this came with the announcement that the results would be published imminently.  Not one to be caught out a second time, I went to bed.

The results which were published the following morning are as follows:

1st male – Alan Ford of Barnsley Harriers – 01:00:48

1st female – Tara Burkill of Danum Harriers – 01:19:09

Rob Betts was true to his current outstanding form, finishing as 1st Strider and 8th overall.

FV45 was finally and correctly awarded to myself, Tracey Davies (Trophy is in the post)