I went to Blaydon races,
Twas on the 9th of June,
Twenty Hundred and Fifteen,
On a summer’s afternoon!
Now that we’ve got that out of our system (and if you haven’t, you can listen to ‘The Blaydon Races’ on audioBoom).
The Blaydon Races is probably second only to the Great North Run for notoriety in the North-East, outside of the running club calendars at least – probably because of the inconvenience to the general public for road closures! The race is held on the 9th of June every year, regardless of what day of the week this falls on – and runs along one of the biggest roads into Newcastle, usually about the same time many commuters are wanting to use it to get home…tradition comes first right?! The race has been organised since its inaugration in its current form, by the Blaydon Harriers since 1981 – and has very strict intake numbers, which are always exceeded by the number of applicants!
Not being ‘in’ the running club scene quite yet when the original applications openend up, I was oblivious to the places opening up – but there was an issue with the system and it ended up crashing – meaning the last 300 places were available on a different date after everything had been sorted again. This small doorway in, I had picked up on – and was sitting at the computer waiting from about 08:30 that morning – entry opened at 9am. I hit refresh exactly as the computer clock clicked over – and was straight into the waiting list, already at place 40 something or something like that so they must have gone lightning fast!
Blue Runnings 