Report by Emma Connelly

Race Date: Sunday 24^th February 2019

Firstly, no Snakes so don’t panic!

It was my first time out as a Steel City Strider and I was looking forward to wearing my vest!

A bit of a trek over there to Pocklington, East Yorkshire. About 1 hour 20 mins from Dronfield, but the promise of a flat course drew me in. I am currently training for Manchester marathon and the Dronfield and Sheffield hills, whilst offering some good training, do make me long for a flatter run. The 10 mile distance also seemed appealing, I’ve never raced over 10 miles before so something new.

As we drove into Pocklington, we were instantly directed to the Rugby Club car park where there was ample parking. The race started at 10am, we arrived at around 9:20 with plenty of time for a mile warm up and a toilet break before the start. The parking was free too and lots of toilets, no silly queues. Very civilised.

At 9:45 we were escorted to the start line, this was about a 5 min walk from the rugby club and we were running at bang on 10am.

The weather was amazing, the sun was shining and cool enough air to make for perfect running conditions. The course was pretty flat and on lovely country lanes with some scenic views thrown in. The part of the course where the road starts to ‘Snake’ definitely had an incline and again at around 8 miles there was a decent hill.  Slight downhill to finish which leads you back into the market place to cheering crowds. Out on the course lots of Marshalls, a complete ban on headphones as the roads are not closed. The water stations were at about 4 miles and 7 miles and the water was served in cups, I have not mastered this yet and pretty much drowned in my own cup on both attempts. I need to work on this!

Overall this is a great run, flat, fast course over a nice distance. Really well supported, organised and marshalled. I would recommend this run and the distance. Makes a nice change from a half marathon. Lovely medal and t-shirt too, I think there may have been a mug for finishers too but I missed this. Couldn’t see straight at the end. A total of 1035 runners finished the race, a fantastic turnout.

The winner, William Strangeway (Lincoln Wellington AC) finished in 52:08
And the first lady home was Tracy Millmore (Birtley AC) in 01:01:06.

I managed 31st Lady (7th FV40) out of 499 women to finish in 1:13:46 so absolutely thrilled!

One for the diary next year definitely, maybe get a few more Striders there next year? I’ll drive!
Well done to the Pocklington runners and everyone involved for putting on a great event.

Link to full results here.