The weather didn’t look so great as we set off for Guisborough and it took a while to get parked due to snowy conditions and a very icy rugby club car park. There was a good turnout and the rugby club was a hive of activity when I got there to register.
There was a good few centimetres of snow on the ground and the woods looked fantastic in their wintery garb. There were two other Striders, Dave Gibson and Phil Owen. Dougie was also there but he was running in his DFR vest so he didn’t count, although we did let him join us on the pre-race pictures.
The race is just under 6 miles and consists of 3 laps of the woods. Its uphill for the first half of each lap with a particularly steep and strenuous climb out to the top of the woods. Of course what goes up must come down and the end of each lap has a fantastic downhill section where runners can really cut loose back to the start. This year a fallen tree added to the excitement.
The first two laps were pretty good running in crunchy fresh snow the last lap was a bit more slippy as the snow became more compressed and one or two rocks became exposed but all in all it was super running conditions (my opinion).
Phil Sanderson led from start to finish (no big surprise) and I got in in 26th place which I was quite pleased with. I know running laps puts quite a few people off this race but it’s actually a pretty good run out and well worth the effort (again my opinion).
Results
Pos | Name | Club | Cat | Pos | Time |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Phil Sanderson | NFR | MV40 | 39.17 | |
26 | Tom Reeves | MV40 | 7 | 48.48 | |
31 | Cath Williamson | Loftus and Whitby | F | 1 | 49.16 |
74 | Dougie Nisbet | DFR | MV45 | 8 | 61.20 |
79 | Phil Owen | MV45 | 9 | 64.36 | |
81 | David Gibson | MV40 | 16 | 65.25 |
94 finishers.