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.