Ferriby 10

Skidby, East Yorkshire, Sunday, January 29, 2012

Alister Robson

Alister, ready for the off, completely sober and properly equipped. Good to see.

A strange race this one, my first in the V40 category if you don’t count parkrun. First I should make clear it’s nowhere near Ferriby. Having being going for nearly 60 years, (and with a very healthy field of 559 this year who can blame them), they obviously didn’t want to change the branding even when the route changed some years ago.

The route itself starts and finishes at the local landmark of Skidby Mill, just outside of Beverley and Cottingham and takes in a loop of the surrounding countryside on surprisingly open roads (more on that later). It’s a course of two halves, descending quickly at the start into the village of Little Weighton before climbing gradually but remorselessly up to the half way marker just short of Riplington. From here it falls all the way to just short of the finish, back at Skidby, except for a nasty sting in the tail – a short sharp climb up the slip road.

It’s a friendly, well organised run, with mainly club runners, although Jacquie was a little disappointed, (she says), to find there were no entries on the day. I was very pleased with my time and especially a very healthy negative split (no real surprise in the end given the course profile but still..) I was also very pleased to kick on in the last 3 or 4 miles and finally get the better of a Scarborough AC runner who I’d been having a battle with for most of the race. I was slightly less proud of myself when I discovered in the results that she was a FV55…

Something that disappoints me at this and many other recent events (Brass Monkey/Brampton to Carlisle etc) is the amount of runners hogging the right side of the carriageway when the road is ‘live’ and even more foolishly running with headphones on. I’ve heard the arguments that the middle of the road has less camber and that people like to have their routine and ‘can’t run without their tunes’ but I think that it’s mostly selfish, dangerous and disrespectful to the marshals who aren’t just jobsworths and fun sponges and who are there, (often on a voluntary basis), to ensure the runners safety. I hope it doesn’t lead to more race organisers having to impose closed roads with all the added expense that that incurs when with a bit of common sense it can be avoided. Rant over.

A lovely long sleeved white tech tee with a purple Skidby windmill logo was the memento.

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