The last weekend of October was a dilemma which I suppose lots of Harriers had, should I go to the fun filled weekend in the Dales with the EHH Massive, to take on the tough hills and conditions of the 3 Peaks, or do the local Haltemprice 10K with it’s own challenge of hills or a fast, flat and potential PB course of the McCain Yorkshire Coast 10K in sunny Scarborough? Well I wanted to do all three but I entered the Scarborough race first so I stuck with that choice.

The last 12 months has been my first real year of entering proper races and attempting to chase times however modest they are. I had previously entered five 10K’s and had a PB in each one, and thought Scarborough would be a good course to make that number 6.

Race day arrived with another problem as well as getting there, which was.. What time is it? Unfortunately for me, it was the day the clocks either went forward or was it back? I didn’t have a clue so decided to get there early, “ just to make sure”.

The journey to Scarborough was uneventful and I found a decent parking spot at the top of the cliff and went for a recce to find the start. I walked about 50 meters and went straight back to the car for some more clothes, it was bloody freezing. Descending the cliff was quite tricky, because the path was very slippery with fallen leaves and maybe ice and was glad we wasn’t going that way, unlike the Scarborough Rock 26 miler which does. I arrived what I thought was the start area but was the only one there, wandered about for a while till the setup crew arrived so knew I was at the right place … was just over 2 hours too early lol.. So re-traced my way back up the cliff face to the car and had a power nap.

The race route is pretty flat and should be fast, it’s along the sea front road around the Castle headland up to the Sea Life Centre and back the same route with just a small detour loop near Peasholm Park. The weather was cold but calm so everything was looking good.

I made my way back at the start with 40 minutes to go, it was very busy now and I spotted lots of familiar faces. One of those was Adam Callan. Now I knew Adam was a similar speed to me because we ran pretty close to each other while I chased Wayne and Karl all the way round the twist and turns of the Hull 10K so we agreed in the absence of my normal 2 running Nemeses to run together and pace each other to hopefully a good time. I told him I thought I was in decent shape and was hoping for a sub 46 and that’s what I had set my watch to pace me at.

I m a “Statto” and whenever I race I try to even pace with no real surges till the last 200 meters sprint, so use my watch to try to gauge my efforts.

We all gathered in the pens and the hooter went off for the start. It’s a chip timed race so knew there was no need to push to the front and to go steady for the first 100 meters while it settled down, but unfortunately some others didn’t get the message. It’s a narrow start funnel and there was lots of pushing and I saw one lad fall heavily to the ground right next to me and nearly bring me down with him, so was relieved when we got to the sea front road and it widened out.

I had set off well and my trusty watch was saying I was 10 seconds up at the first 1K marker, Adam was right beside me and we encouraged each other that it was going ok. We continued along the cobble stone sea front road at a good pace. At nearly 4K we came off the seafront and headed by the outdoor pool and towards Peasholm Park, we was still around 10 secs up and I felt fine but knew I had been working quite hard. My only worry was that my watch was running a bit short and was beeping well before the official Kilo markers. The 5K watch beep was at 22.31 but the official 5K marker was 22.51 so was confident at half way we was still on for a sub 46 min PB

The route was both ways now and I could see the faster runners heading back from the turn around, I shouted encouragement to any faces I recognized, and one of those was Dave Maskell. He was well in front of me so was impressed with his pace. 6K still 5 seconds up but I could feel I was starting to slow down a touch and it maybe was a slight head wind. 7K marker, we was 5 seconds behind and it was getting tough. My heart rate was thru the roof and worryingly the other runners around me was starting to slowly edge away and by 8K we was 15 seconds too slow on my watch, bugga.

I now hoped the route was gunna be a bit short coz that was the only way I was gunna PB today. At 8.5K I asked Adam how he felt, he said “shattered “ (polite version) lol, I told him I felt even worse and it was gunna be a 46.20 ish at best if we kept this pace, which would still be a PB for him. I said if he had anything left he should go, and to my surprise he bloody well did.

The finish line was in sight but not getting nearer quick enough, Adam was well in front of me and looking strong, I was dying a thousand deaths even tho I was getting cheered on by the large crowd esp by Gary Robinson, thanks mate.
My watch beeped the 10K mark but I still had around 100 meters left to go, I saw it had just ticked over the 46 mins mark so just jogged over the line a disappointed and knackered mess.

I caught up with Adam after the finish and he said he thought he had done a 30 sec PB. Then saw Dave Maskell and he said he was sure he was sub 46 and a 60 odd second PB.
So the course was good enough, I just wasn’t. It was my slowest 10K of the year by 3 seconds, so in hindsight I realised that I just haven’t done enough hard miles in the last month or so, I had eased off a lot since end of July really, So must try harder. I chatted to lots of runners I knew from either Park Run or the local Harrier races and most seem to have run well.

The finishing mementoes’ of a nice orange Halloween themed T shirt and top quality medal cheered me up a bit, wasn’t too sure about the spork tho !
Will I do it again? Of course I will, It was fairly cheap, great fast course with good scenery, well organised ect… Just need to do a bit more hard training before hand to do it justice. My finishing chip time was 46.38. In position 297 out of 1620 runners

Other Harriers I spotted in the results

• Stuart Buchanan 41.56
• Guy Gibson 43.58
• Dave Maskell 45.52
• Adam Callan 46.05
• Stephen Graham 47.23
• Shirley Oglesby 49.24
• Steven Poulsom 51.43
• Anthony Payne 53.34
• John Crosby 53.48
• Laura Cropper 57.43
• Paul Backen 00:59:11
• Graham Hall 00:59:58

Paul Reed