Race report by Steph Street

We’re frequent visitors to Scarborough and running along the North Yorkshire coast I’m definitely in my happy place. So when I saw there was a running festival in Redcar with a route along the coast me and Ian Blackburn decided to enter. My training didn’t go to plan due to the return of knee trouble with back pain thrown in the mix too. But we’d booked the race with an overnight stay so I decided to run anyway and just try and enjoy being there. My pre race preparation was a sports massage and pain killers.

The race is organised by New Marske Harriers. There is a 2k fun run, 5k, 10k and half marathon distance. The route is a loop out and back on the coast road plus a bit extra for the half. It also incorporated the North East Counties half marathon championship and was a qualifier for the England Athletics Masters Half Marathon. I’d been feeling optimistic when I entered so threw my hat in the ring for a Masters place. You have to put your age on your back if you do this so I tried to make it a discreet number as I’d lost all faith in myself by race day. The race timing chips were a bit unusual too. 2 dangly tabs that you pinned to each side of your top. So with that plus race number and camel back I felt a bit like a Christmas tree with stuff stuck on me.

Arriving at the race start on the seafront I was struck by how many people were doing actual proper warm ups and were very fit looking club runners. I felt I was a fun runner among a very elite field. It’s also a very small race, 437 in the half, less than some park runs. So there was nowhere to hide.

 

This was definitely not the nice relaxed run along the coast I’d envisaged. The road was long, very long, very straight and with few glimpses of the sea to break the monotony. Something clicked in my brain and I gave myself a talking to. “If you don’t give it your best shot you will regret it”.

I was delighted to finish 3rd F65 in just under 2 hours. There was very little support en route apart from at the start and finish although apparently Dame Tani Gray-Thompson was there supporting. Unfortunately I didn’t see her. There was a problem with the timing chips, not surprising in my opinion. So the full results weren’t available until Tuesday morning which was a bit of a pain. Prizes were awarded for 1st and 2nd past the post with the remainder of 30 prizes in total being on age grade only. If was noted by the organisers that the half was particularly competitive with 83.03% age grade required for a prize. Older runners featured heavily in the age grade prizes and some amazing times were run.

Goodies at the end were chocolate (always good) nice black t shirt and medal plus some red wooly hats from Everyone Active who are sponsors.

Striders Results