North Of The Humber

It’s zero degrees as we drive up the M1, M18, M62 and journey north of the Humber for the nowhere-near-Ferriby ten mile race. The start is in the village of Skidby and the car park half a mile away in the next village of Cottingham. This year we find somewhere to park in Skidby itself, which is much easier and we stumble across a mini race HQ at Skidby Windmill. Toilets, food, hot drinks etc. Everything you need really.

The race is set off punctually at 11am, it’s still chilly and I’ve forgotten my gloves but daren't nip back to the car to get them, in case the race goes without me, which I think it would have done. From memory I know the course is more or less uphill to halfway and then flat or downhill to the finish, apart from the final half a mile which involves another climb. Perhaps it would be nice to run it the other way around sometime...

I amble my way around to that halfway point in 37:42, 40 seconds slower than last year and pointing towards a race time of 1:15 at least. Awful. Even with the downs to come, that’s a lot to pull back to get under 1:13 which was my unstated aim. It would require a storming second half, better than 7 minute miles and I’ve been doing 7:30, 7:40 so far. Then I do a 7:00 and then a 6:50. Hmmm, possible.

My second half IS storming and I scrape home in 1:12:56, I fair sprinted up that last hill. Perhaps the training is starting to pay off. Last year’s t-shirt of the year is followed by another good one, although not quite as striking. It’s also long sleeved, which is needed this time of the year but will sadly be redundant by Easter.

While I hack 5 seconds off my time from last year, L hacks 5 minutes off hers. She does like to upstage me. That’s nearly 374 of her 500 miles down now. I wonder what my tally is, I ought to work it out and also the tally of miles to and from the races, that would be scary.

Then we do the same as last year and seek out some friends near Market Rasen, it’s been a year... and they again kindly do us a Sunday lunch.

(Sunday 29th January)