From Dan McKeown…

Photo credit Kev Rudd of Loftus and Whitby AC

The annual family jolly to Sandsend yielded a couple of racing opportunities, so I had to pack the Harriers vest along with the factor 50 and the flip flops for my trip to the North Yorkshire coast.

First up was “Tom’s Bransdale Fell Race” last Wednesday, which was about 20 miles inland from our holiday let, and still somehow took an hour to drive to.

The 12k race took us up a fairly long brutal climb, onto a lovely runnable track, where I picked up a few places. It then took us downhill through quite a lot of rough moorland trod, where I lost places, lost my way, lost my footing, lost hope, lost my temper and goodness knows what else. 

I still picked up seventh place and a bottle of vino as the M45 prize but, in keeping with the theme of the evening, I also managed to lose my phone – another runner had to contact me through my ICE deeds and post it to the cottage, so I had a few welcome days offline.

(If you *can* find your way to Cockayne in Bransdale, I’d highly recommend the race, not least for the camaraderie among the runners, but largely for the post-race barbecue.)

The second race of the week was a return trip to the Mulgrave Castle 10k on Sunday, which begins and finishes about 2km (largely uphill) from Sandsend. It’s a trail 10k, and is pretty much the opposite of a fell race: it starts at the top of the hill, the first mile of the race plunges downhill and the course guides you down almost to the seafront, before a leg-sapping second half slog back up to the new Mulgrave Castle.

The winner of Wednesday night’s fell race led the field out and soon opened up a convincing gap. Having given chase with rather less enthusiasm than the other would-be challengers, I had enough in the tank to claw my way into second place just after halfway and protect my slender advantage all the way back up the hill to add the £35 runner-up prize to my haul for the week.

Happily, we’ve got five more days of holiday, so I can finally get on with the serious business of slamming ice creams and sleeping in.

Results

Tom’s Bransdale Fell Race, Cockayne

7 Dan McKeown 1:03:30

(Winning time 56:28, 79 ran)

Mulgrave Castle 10k, Lythe

2 Dan McKeown 37:40

(Winning time 35:27, 94 ran)