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Washington Trail 10k 2016

by Sarah J.

I must admit 2016 is not sticking in my mind as being the best for races, but it must also be said that none of it has been down to the races and their organisers themselves! With the exception of the Cragside 10k, not a single one this year has gone to plan for me!

The plan for the Washington Trail, which J and I did last year so I did have some inclining as to what the route and terrain was going to be like, was the same as for Cragside – slow and steady and pootle round going steady regardless of terrain. The WT10k is a moderately hilly course. The problem with this came with the weather – a foggy morning which burnt off around about start time to give 20 degrees of baking sunshine. Heat. I hate heat. I hate doing anything in the heat. You could seriously bake a full English breakfast on my face after about a mile of trying to run in the summer. Ok, I may be exaggerating very slightly. Only slightly though. Point is, me + running + summer do not get along!

J may or may not have noticed, when we were prepping for the GNR last September, I didn’t really do many sociable runs leading up to and pretty much kept to myself. I didn’t go into it at the time but I was really struggling – 5k was a fight which was incredibly demoralising for someone who a few months before was getting comfortable with doing 10M on a weekend. I really worried about getting round. This summer, I’m a bit more prepared in knowing what to expect – I found it a lot harder going out in the summer, but actually was matching my previous Spring pace (even if it didn’t feel like it), and it meant I reaped the benefits when the temperature dropped again. Just gotta get through it to autumn again! A slightly sad countdown when it’s only May and summer’s just beginning…

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Gibside Fruit Bowl

by Sarah J.

Enough time has passed now that I feel able to talk about the trauma that was the Gibside Fruit Bowl race…the 19th annual race of the Blackhill Bounders at the National Trust’s Gibside estate. Ok, so it wasn’t bad enough to actually be traumatic, but it was very tough. I’m actually just really late posting because it’s taken me this long to have a working computer – I fried my PC and my netbook at the same time, touchscreens are the bane of my life so I wasn’t writing this on my tablet, and I’ve only just managed to get one of them running again – unfortunately the PC’s going to need a new power supply and I haven’t figured out which one I need yet. I will.

Back to the race! I’ve run here before once or twice for the Great Run Local route, which is a 5k from the walled garden up to the monument and round through the woods, past the play area and back to the house. I remember hearing one of the GRL organisers saying once that they’d tried running it in reverse just to see if they could add some variety to it by sometimes running the route in the other direction, except he said it wasn’t really possible as some of the hills in that direction were too steep and long to really run up. A special prize for guessing which way the Fruit Bowl route went….

Obviously, being more than twice the distance, it covered rather more than just the GRL route – and of course, the other bits were not going to be nice easy bits. It turned out to actually be a hybrid of the GRL route, the National Trust Night Run course I did last February, and some random extra steep hills that they’d thrown in for good measure. Definitely the toughest 10k course I’ve done, and actually probably the toughest run I’ve ever done – Gelt Gladiator had nothing on this one!

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Hellhole 10k

by Sarah J.

It’s that time of year again, the weather is cooling down nicely and we’re all dreaming of hot soups and stews, autumn colours, warm fuzzy jumpers and big coats… And plague. For the human respiratory system for some reason is fine in most temperature conditions, but heaven forbid it has to cope with any sort of change. Phlegm for you Sir, lots of it, and maybe a headache and swollen glands. A human body in full immune response doesn’t do subtle or attractive!

I skipped park run on Saturday, particularly knowing I was booked in for Hellhole on Sunday, and decided I’d play it by ear on Sunday morning before deciding whether I was going or not. At this point I was still at the sore throat level, I have since levelled up and am now a full-blown (ha-ha) snothead boss! Lucky me huh. Obviously I did decide to run it, or we wouldn’t even be here, but decided I’d take it slow, wrap up, walk if I needed to and just get round. First time since last winter I’ve had ye olde thermal top on! I had my running lights on earlier in the week too, the dark nights are fast approaching!

Anyway, nice and snug I was – thermal for my chest, buff for my neck, soothers in belt pouch, trail shoes on, ready to go! I’ve not done Hellhole before, nor been to Stanley – only driven through it so I didn’t really know what to except for this one, other than being slightly suspicious of anything called ‘multi-terrain’ and having resigned myself to hills.

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Kielder Beat the Bull – 10k

by Sarah J.

There’s one word always seems to sum up the experience of running at Kielder for me – surreal. If you’re wanting to dip your toe into the world of trail running, or just looking for an alternative to pounding the pavements along your local streets, this one really is fab.

I did the 10k race last year as one of my first, and loved it enough to sign up on opening day this year. There’s something really special about running here, it is not by any stretch of the imagination flat, but it is probably the quietest race I’ve ever done and with such a gorgeous setting it really is one to kick back and enjoy.

I’d turned up in 2014 with no real preconceptions as to what to expect, quietly hoping to beat my last 10k best I’d set at the Gateshead Trail 2 months before, and looking forward to running somewhere new – it was the first time I’d been to Kielder after being on the ‘investigate’ list for a while.

There is a very prominent feature in the Kielder 10k route around the peninsula…and I don’t mean the lake. Between the 1km and 2km mark is a very long, rather steep hill – travelled in the up direction. Last year, I thought that was me done and seriously considered bailing out and heading back to the start line thinking the whole thing was going to be like that and it would be the end of me. I made it (slowly) to the top – where the kind marshall souls had set up a water station – and wrote off all possible thoughts of a pb, focused my mind on getting round and set off again. It was the most zen 8k I’ve ever ran. I just switched off, enjoyed the views and the woodland stretches, and made it to the finish line – 2 mins quicker than my last pb. Take that hill.

This year, I was set up to take a similar approach – this is a course route to be enjoyed not just completed. I would do whatever I had to to get up that hill just so I could run the rest of it again. As it happens, my memories of the hill from last year had made it much steeper than I found it this year with something to look forward to. It was still there, still a hill, and still long, but it was conquerable. Get it out the way and you can enjoy the rest. Get up it any way you have to – run, jog, powerwalk, walk, stagger, crawl. It’s ONE hill and then you’re onto ‘undulating’ 🙂 That’s your reward.

I loved every minute of this year – even the hill. I don’t actually know where the first 3km went before they seemed to be behind me. It felt like it took so much less time than the year before. I had my eye on another Bounder vest that had left me behind by the 7km mark at the Gateshead Trail and I was determined to keep it in sight at the very least this time! There were quite a few of us there this year, and more on the half and full marathon courses for Sunday.

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Washington Trail 2015 – Trail Outlaws

by Sarah J.

by Hippie Nixon

I’ve not done a race specifically organised by the Trail Outlaws before, but they were involved in the Washington running club’s 5k fundraiser event earlier in the year, so I figured I had some small inkling what to expect from this one – some hilly, muddy bits and some footpath tarmac track. I wasn’t far off; the tarmac was mostly absent but there was a good mix of trail paths and woodland track – much more rooty than on the Washington one.

J & I had both read that there were some hills on this course – and they weren’t kidding! It started gentle enough, a long downhill to the river and a flattish short loop out to the main road and back in. Back to the drink and jelly baby station, so far so good, face full of sweeties and a rehydration pause (one has tried glugging from plastic cups while running before and does not wish to repeat the experience!), off we went again – over the bridge and…up. On to a steep road which put us into the woodland section, on a narrow trail with tree-roots which was more technical (read: higher ankle-breaking-potential) than where I usually go, but was really enjoyable and peaceful. It’s been a while since I’ve hit proper woodland trails in a deciduous English wood – and I really could have been back in Surrey running in the woods by my parents’ house.

There were a couple of sneaky very steep but blessedly short slopes in the woods – you either trotted up on your toes knowing you’d slip if you didn’t keep moving, or scramble making use of hands where needed! This took us out the woods and back on the tow paths for a long stretch of flats – very welcome and I only partially filled my face with ripe blackberries on the way through 😉 Another slope at the end to reach the bridge and turn back towards the jelly baby station (so much easier to look forward to than just a water station!). It was a long straight along the river and under the viaduct to our next face-filling point, and by this point we had a lot of space between the runners ahead and behind, so it was wonderfully peaceful being in the shade on a sunny morning by the river. I think I’m going to have to drag P back down this way for a walk in the autumn – it was really pretty 🙂

by CS of the Trail Outlaws

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Gateshead Trail 2015 – 10k

by Sarah J.

I don’t know why I bother with alarm clocks I really don’t. The Gateshead Trail kicked off at 10am, registration opening at 8am and knowing how busy it was last year even when I’d collected my number before raceday, I opted for getting there just after registration time to pick up my number so I’d set my alarm for early. I still woke up at 05:30 – a similar time to when I get up for work, and spent an hour in bed on the tablet before getting up for a shower. I took a book with me (to the race, not in the shower) and read it in the car for an hour after I’d picked up my number and t-shirt (pre-ordered with race entry, not a finisher’s pack one for this one) as it was still nippy outside. By not a huge amount of time after 9am it was already warming up and I was starting to cook even with the window down – I had a lightweight hoody on with the hood up to shade my face so my cheeks weren’t burning before I’d set off!

I set off with a group of Bounders in the 60-70 minute wave but it wasn’t long before we all spaced out as we each settled into our own paces. Last time I did this race I’d not been running a huge amount of time and I remember being really pleased that I made it all the way to the 3km mark without a walking break – at the time this was a walk-free record for me, and actually as I passed the same marker this time I was tempted to do the same thing! Instead of just bailing and walking – that really would have been folding to just general lethargy, I made myself take a step down in the pace and use this race as a training exercise for keeping going for longer in the heat by not pushing myself as fast – or I probably wouldn’t have gotten round in one go as I did. Having run-walked it last year, I really wanted to run the whole thing this year, and knowing it’s mostly flat and I’ve covered the distance and further several times before I was not allowing any excuses not to!

I got a boost from the passing section where everyone waves and cheers on each other while they’re passing, but it wasn’t until somewhere between the 5 and 6km mark that I really started to find my groove and settle down into a quiet headspace where I didn’t have to fight with my legs, lungs or temperature. Of course, not long after that I hit the longest hill on the course and that nearly had me – I was determined to get as far up as I could even with some other runners dropping down to a walk halfway up and made it to the crest, but if it had been much longer I’m not sure I would have been able to!

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No Ego Trail Challenge: Otterburn – 10km

by Sarah J.

Today was J’s first ever 10km race event – and typically for her she threw herself right in at the deep end with a nice tough one! Getting lost in the dark around Wallington just wasn’t enough of a challenge it would seem! We headed up to Redesdale Forest near Otterburn for the event, starting at the airstrip near the army basecamp. J had butterflies on the way up, so had to be content with a handful of chocolate raisins while I filled my face with orange juice and chocolate chip brioche things (I was so hungry this morning for some reason – I ate four!!!), and then tucked into the chocolate raisins! Obviously, today I was destined to be a huge pig.

There were only 34 runners for the 10km route, with the 10 mile runners having left 30 mins before, so quite a small group compared to some runs we’ve done. I think the Sand Dancers may have pulled quite a few of the club runners away as I believe that one was part of some sort of league thing. Still getting up on the club lingo :S We were at the start line for this one anyway, In our lovely matching pink monstrosity canoe trainers that we’d bought specially for such events!

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