Great Aberdeen Run

We are on holiday in Scotland and staying around 25 miles from Aberdeen from where head to the Great Aberdeen Run. There is a half marathon for me and a 10k for L. It is also seriously warm and we are fortunate to find a nice shady multi-storey car park to keep the dogs cool.

The race starts on Union Street, skirts the rather nice harbour before going along the esplanade. Then it’s over the Bridge of Don to take us along a ‘beautiful’ dual carriageway for one those out and backs before looping back across the River Don into ‘old’ Aberdeen complete with serious hills and cobbles. Then it’s back down the esplanade and past Aberdeen FC’s Pittodrie stadium, which I managed to miss, before heading back into the city centre and a downhill finish back on Union Street.

Having survived the run in a leisurely 01:50, I then slip off the rocks on the beach on some seaweed and twist my ankle. L tells me to go stand in the sea until the swelling goes down.  Much to our surprise Aberdeen has the most amazing beach and it is ideal for the dogs.

Leek Half Marathon

On Sunday I am back at the Leek Half Marathon for the first time since 2011. Which was when L convinced me what a great race it was beforehand and then vowed how much she hated it afterwards. We’ve not been back since.

The race has had a bit of a chequered history since then. It was cancelled in 2014 and was nearly lost to the calendar completely. It was reduced to 10 miles last year due to moorland fires.

So it’s good to be back and to find that nothing has actually changed. They do say it’s a different route these days but I couldn’t tell. Needless to say it still isn’t flat. Although I suppose the selling point is the great view from the Roaches, if you can get enough oxygen in to your lungs by then to enjoy it.

The only thing that has obviously changed is me. Did I really run this in 1:43 in 2011? I do 1:53 today.

Burton 10k

L wasn't convinced she was going to be running the Burton 10k today but then at the last minute she decides she is fit to run and then blitzes it in a good time.

Although she nearly didn’t get the chance to blitz anything as we struggle to get to the start at Shobnall Leisure Centre because most of the surrounding roads are closed due to road works. We have to abandon our car in a street somewhere and walk the rest of the way, as do a fair number of the competitors although others do seem to have cracked the secret code and found a way to the car park.

The course is undulating, or rather largely uphill in the first half and downhill in the second half. It finishes with a lap of the athletics track at Shobnall. It was a pleasant leg stretch.

Trentham 10k

After Friday’s 10k we do another race on Sunday. This is the Trentham 10k which starts in Tittensor and is part of the lesser known (e.g. we’ve never heard of it) Trentham Triple series which also includes the Dave Clarke 5 and the Werrington 10k.

We have missed the deadline for online entry because we were waiting to see it either\both of us (but mainly L) could still walk after Friday’s run. So we have to get out skates on to arrive there nice and early, way before the 10:30am start, to grab what are described as ‘very limited on the day places’ which are being issued on a first come, first served basis as they have apparently had a huge amount of enquiries.

We are there before the registration desk is even officially open and still we aren’t either first come or first served but we do get in.

Once the race starts I begin to wonder why there was an apparent huge demand as the course is evil.

After starting on the main road we take an immediate left turn into a housing estate, which was quite hilly itself, before re-joining the main road to make our way to the bottom of a climb up something they call Beech Caves. This was simply sadistic, we didn’t need to go that way at all because once up it we U-turned to come straight back down again. They took us up it purely for the hell of it and the ‘fun’ of it.

Apparently the race was formerly known as the John Oultram 10 which was a 10 miles long and consisted of two laps of a 5 mile course including two trips up Beech Caves. Sadly a few years ago it was re-jigged into single lap 10k race. It’s a shame because there simply aren’t enough 10 milers around. I imagine it wasn’t as popular as the 10ks are but perhaps they could have run both side by side.

My time of 49:57 is not great but in the hilly circumstances probably not too bad either.

Castle Rock 10K

Tonight the Castle Rock 10K at Nottingham University, this was formerly the Jägermeister of course. It is the seventh time I’ve done it, having done the Jägermeister version five years out of six from 2007 to 2012 and in some ridiculously good times. Now known as my good years...

I’ve only done it once since and this was in 2016 after Castle Rock took over. This year we find out they’ve changed the course. How dare they! We all need some certainty in our lives and this was it.

I don’t know if it’s a permanent change or not as their website says that ‘due to ongoing work around the lake area the course is subject to change’. It’s not a totally bad change, it’s just disconcerting. Actually it is a bad change because the second lap is no longer shorter than the first one, which was always nice.

Clearly my legs don’t like it as I’m three minutes slower than I’ve ever been in 48:34. Apart from that, everything else about the race was great. It was as well run as ever with some 'nice' hills.

The other thing about this race, and another dose of certainty in our lives, is that they’ve never given out a t-shirt that I’ve felt was socially wearable. No change there. So some certainty remains. Phew.

The Run

L and Daughter have talked me into doing ‘The Run’ with them. We have done this several times before. Four years in a row in fact from 2008 to 2011 but not since. It starts from the Navigation Inn in Breaston and is a 4 mile run.

We used to get a mug for doing it, in the first three years, and it still seems a rather retro venture by only having a postal entry form. Which they seem to have photocopied and uploaded upside down.

Unfortunately L can barely walk so doesn’t run and Daughter is injured too, so I end up doing a run I was only doing this because those two were but I enjoy it. At 29:32 I was only a minute slower than my 2011 time when I recall I was injured, although a full four minutes slower than my best in 2010.

Round Sheffield Run

We managed to get places in the legendary (I believe, not that we’d heard of it until last year) Round Sheffield Run by way of their ballot, which digitally collapsed but still worked out for us. So here we are at Endcliffe Park faced with the usual enormous queue but in this case not just for the toilets but also to actually cross the start line. Not that you could actually start until your colour came up and we were in the last start wave anyway at 10:15. So no great rush for us.

Round Sheffield is a 20km run broken up into eleven stages. You carry a 'dibber' like we do with Orienteering and 'dib' in at the start and end of each stage. The stages have recovery breaks between them which total a further 4.5km of walking\collapsing on the grass gasping for breath. Which means it’s pretty much a half marathon where you have full permission to walk bits of it and\or grab a quick nap. Easy peasy then. It is based on the popular 14 mile Sheffield Round Walk and was launched in 2014.

The longest stage was the first one at 2.9km and this was a slightly uphill jog out of Endcliffe Park to somewhere called Forge Dam (I don't know these areas of Sheffield). The start of the second stage was almost straight after the first and I was straight on to it. This was said to be the toughest stage and it was certainly nearly all uphill. It was up Ringinglow, so mirrored the Sheffield Half Marathon but via an off road route. It also brought us to the first of two feed stations although this felt a bit too soon, so most people didn’t seem to bother.

Then we had two downhill stages, one of which was termed the Limb Valley Descent no less, and this took us down to Dore.

Stage Five was interesting. First it was a long walk, so you felt something serious was coming... then we had to climb a long set of steep steps to get to the start point. Personally I'd have started the stage at the bottom of steps but I can understand why they didn't. This was also where I started to get frustrated at being in the last start group because as soon as anything got remotely difficult people started walking and there often wasn't much opportunity to overtake.

Stage Six was a mere 0.8km of undulating terrain which was then followed by a short walk to Graves Park where Stage Seven was pretty much all uphill. This brought us to the second feed station which this time was very welcome.

What comes up must come down and both Stages Eight and Nine were downhill, one alongside a golf course and the other in Meersbrook Park which was only 0.8km long and seriously steep, downwards, with a great view of Sheffield.

The penultimate stage was initially a road stage and started in the street but it didn’t stay there as we were soon into more woodland and obviously none of it was flat.

We were back in Endcliffe Park for the final stage which was termed as a 04.km sprint back to the race village. Not that I really bothered to sprint, I could already see that the queue for the beer tent was huge. Which I then joined as I waited for L.

The other problem with being late starters was that the food stalls had hardly anything left to eat that didn’t include tofu.

It was certainly a different running experience because stopping mid race is normally avoided. I did like the concept but I would probably have preferred less but longer stages. I am now more into my longer distances and none of the stages were long enough for me to get my teeth into. Stop-start is not really my thing. In fact it didn't really feel like a race at all, it was more like interval training. I suppose you could have done it all non-stop or even ran the whole 24.5km but that didn't seem in the spirit of the things or indeed very wise.

I completed the distance in 1:49:34 which made me 629^th overall out of 2067. My best stages were Stages Two and Seven, the hilliest ones, where I broke into the top 400. My slowest stages were Nine and Eleven, showing I’m a hopeless descender and that I couldn’t be ***ed to sprint at the end!

It was a good experience but I'm not sure I'd be too bothered about doing it again.