The Ferriby 10 is for many people the first race of the year and for many of our new members, the first chance to check how they’ve progressed since joining the East Hull massive. It’s fair to say that the rapidly swelling members (no vulgar euphemism intended) are certainly being noticed, as it’s not the first time I’ve heard comments such as “Bloody hell there’s loads of you lot today” from the stewards and I reckon “Come on East Hull”, again no euphemism (I’ll stop now), seems to be the most quoted phrase in running now.

The conditions were near perfect for the time of year with the blustery wind much lighter than we’ve had in recent years and the temperature hovering around 12⁰C. I confidently predict it’ll be colder when our questionably eponymous Summer League starts in April.

A quick look at the profile for this course shows it to be the classic game of two halves, with the first 5 miles on the ascent and the return home being much kinder with a gentle descent until the cruel hill that takes you back up to Skidby Mill and on to the finish line; the amount of people throwing up and getting cramp here is testament to the hills’ notoriety.

The race was a successful one for our club, with prizes for Mike Hargreaves (5^th finisher overall and 1^st Harrier) Richey Buckle (1^st 35 – 39), and Stuart Carmichael (1^st 40 – 44) and the Mens team winners, while Sara Rookyard was 3^rd lady, – well done you lot.

As mentioned earlier, our membership is ever growing at the moment and I’d like to point out some of the newbies that have really benefitted from becoming a Harrier, please don’t be offended if you don’t get a mention, it’s fair to say that every single one of you is doing the famous red vest proud.

Wayne Martindale has been quietly going about his business, but his achievements have been outstanding and he seems to get a pb every time he runs now, knocking a massive 7 minutes off his course record from last year, Katie Seddon just pipped Wayne with an improvement of 7:20 on last years’ event, Mandy Davison did her first sub 2 hour half marathon at Brass Monkey and made it a double with her fastest ever 10 miler in 1:30:53. Linda Huart knocked 4 minutes off last years’ time going sub 8 minute miles at 1:19:26 and Karl Rolstone at his first attempt also went inside 8 minutes per mile, while Stuart Buchanan debuted in an impressive 75:25.

Alan Gardiner, Graham Hall and John Crosby are all proving it’s never too late to become a member of a running club, all three joined us this year and are tackling longer distance races all the time

My personal race was shared with another of our rapidly improving new members, Kadi Huart had a minor crisis of confidence in the summer, when she was struggling to get past 10k, but the past month or so has seen massive improvements in both pace and distance. We’d decided to run this race together, to combat Kadi’s habit of going out the blocks too quickly and set a target time of 85 mins if things went well and 90 mins if the wheels came off. The downhill start can give temptation to go into top gear, but we stuck to the plan and held back to just marginally quicker than our 8:45 target pace. This paid dividends, as by the half way point and with all the up-hills behind us (except of course for the murderous finish) we were running comfortably and enjoying ourselves with a time of just inside 43 minutes. Kelvin ran alongside us for a while at this stage and gave us some assurance that we were on target, we also had company from Sarah Hulme and it was a real boost to be able to help each other along at this stage. Even though the hard work is done by half way, it’s still not wise to go too quick too early, as 5 miles is still a long way to go if you’re over reaching. However with four consecutive miles averaging around 7:45 it was only in the last mile that tiredness started to show, we stuck to the task though and a bit of East Hull grit and determination up the hill saw us over the finish line at 82:15.

All in all another great East Hull Harriers day out, and an early indication that we have a great year ahead of us.

Keith Conkerton