By: Caroline Brash

Race Date: 20th October, 2024

Once upon a time, two people were Co-Event Directors at Hillsborough parkrun. Nearly every Sunday morning for many years, they’d go for a ridiculous run, with one of them (the younger, prettier one) trailing a very long way behind the other (the faster, sensible one). There was a lot of nonsense spoken, oft accompanied by much mirth and swearing. These legendary jaunts increasingly ended up with pints of bitter shandy and black pudding in a variety of public houses, at 8am or thereabouts, and the brave travellers would thence return to Hillsborough following their adventures, using various forms of public transport.

However, in July 2024, this pattern was halted abruptly, FOR EVER! The much faster, much older one upped sticks and moved to a northern, county far, far away.

Until, that is, the deserter was given a brief to “find a race including castles and beaches”. And so, on 20th October 2024, the duo were briefly reunited for the Run Northumberland Castles Half Marathon, starting and finishing in the shadow of Bamburgh Castle. According to the brief, the race offers “some views out to the Farne Islands and Holy Island and the North Sea”. Sadly for the 406 participants this year, the race fell precisely when Storm Ashley was battering the land, so there weren’t really views of anything at all, except huge puddles, damp hedges, and soaking wet runners and marshals!

Despite the conditions, it was a lovely, closed road, undulating race, well-marked and marshalled, with water stations every 3 miles, and the weather actually picked-up for the last three miles or so. A well-organised event which I’d recommend to anyone planning to visit the north east.

The winner was Andrew Brown (unattached) in 1:20:12, and fastest female Cheryl Harrison (unattached) in 1:33:13.

Striders’ Results: