[Photo credit: Mike AC]
From Dan McKeown…
By happy coincidence, the annual family holiday on the Mulgrave Estate in Sandsend coincided for the first time with the Mulgrave Castle 10k. I’ve had a lot of enjoyment (and nettle rash) running round the local woodland on previous trips, so I’d circled it in the calendar earlier in the year, got the entire family signed up, then didn’t really do enough training and was consoling myself with the fact that I wouldn’t actually be racing against anyone I knew, unlike if I’d been part of the hurly-burly of the inaugural Pete Shields 10k.
Imagine, then, my perplexity when I pitched up to race registration on the Sunday morning and the first person I saw was renowned Harriers second-claimer Mike AC, along with a crowd of more than 30 people from his adopted club, Abbey Runners.
I wasn’t about to take Mike’s aggressive stalking lying down; I marched straight up to him and demanded to know exactly what he thought he was doing there. The look of incredulous horror on his face as he stammered the same question back at me (shorn of some of the more unsavoury epithets I may have used) was at least some reassurance that he wasn’t just following me round the country with a gang of his mates.
While Mike’s partner Rachel tried to revive him by wafting him gently with a scented handkerchief, I bade good morning to the rest of Abbey Runners and remarked that if they’d wanted a 10k away day, there was a pan-flat race rather closer to home they could have driven their coach to. They said something about going for fish and chips afterwards. I said that Ilkley has a perfectly good chippy.
The course of the Mulgrave Castle 10k starts at the new castle, which I’ve never seen up close before (it’s on private land), pitches down into the valley, before winding up to the old castle ruins, fishtails down again to a lumberyard by the coast road, then brings runners round to slog back up the hill to finish where they started.
In previous years, the course had an absolute mule of a final hill, but a series of land slips had taken this out of circulation. I’d still been out and recced it the previous evening, hence I had rather more nettle rash on my legs at the start line than the other runners. A chastened Mike AC was worrying about his allergies; I did my best not to offer him any encouragement.
The host club, Loftus and Whitby, can’t have been any more pleased than I was to see the invading horde from Abbey Runners (except for their treasurer). When the gun went, three of them turboed off down the hill, with Abbey’s Simon Jones in hot pursuit. Although he wasn’t able to pull off a win for the raiders, he prevented a sweep for the home club by making the podium, while Abbey’s Charlotte Knowles earned a hard-fought victory in the ladies’ race.
I finished fifth overall, having dragged myself clear of Mike at the old castle, as he fought his own personal battle against his histamine levels. Happily, this also meant the V40 prize for me, so not a bad start to the holiday.
(1. Adam Theaker 34:15 Loftus & Whitby AC)
5. Dan McKeown 37:31
13. Mike AC 39:01
151 finishers