The weather gods were kinder for Sunday's 10 miler on the Temple Newsam Estate than past years. The race has been going for about seven years hosted by the very lovely St Theresa's Athletic Club (STAC) and the conditions in the past have been on occasions pretty brutal. It consequently attracts a lot of interest with runners coming for a long way away (we are a mad lot!). However, this year the sun shone and the wind had come down a few notches so we didn't quite freeze our bits off wating for the start. Hereabouts it's been a soggy few weeks and on a recce on Saturday (during parkrun) it was clear it would be a muddy course; one fellow club member said trail shoes would be sufficient and mud claws too uncomfortable over the trail parts (I think of him now as "Jon Snow" for he clearly knows nothing!!!) . Other club members are chatting eagerly (yes, eagerly!) about the "puddle of doom".
The course is divided by the M1 (we go through an underpass), roughly half the course is on the Estate proper and the rest on paths and tracks the other side of the M1 coming very close to Skelton Lake service station.
I was just looking to get round, I haven't trained for the distance as still building back post-Covid - and doing it because others are doing it (yes, that's pretty daft!). I have no expectation of a time: my only previous 10 miler was on roads round York in about 2:02 - so I'm slow and really not expecting to get near that time today.
(the pic is of the course start with Temple Newsam house in background - Elizabethan - Jacobean???)
The course starts off with a lap of a field, then down a fine avenue of trees, crosses the a golf course (I suspect the sight of 800 or so runners charging past put a fair few people off their game for a little while!) and winds itself into some light woodland. At first the conditions are ok but as we descend it gets progressively muddier. Just before the motoroway underpass its so muddy downhill that no one is running. It lasts for a few hundred meters then the underpass and lots of marshals (we need to cross a minor road) - 4km done and a steady pace.
A long stretch of road-side tarmac leads to the roundabouts near the services. It feels strange to be "on-road" but it lasts about a km and then we are back onto trails. Lack of training is showing and as I expected it's time to go run-walking if I am going to get round. I'm not alone as there are plenty of similarly minded runners. A turf embankment between the river and a lake starts and this is soggy soggy soggy. Next the course is alternating between rough dry trail path , flooded path, and mud.
There's a group of six runners from Rothwell Harriers supporting eachother, doing mad stuff through puddles, giggling at silly jokes. It's a nice atmosphere here at the back end of the race.
When we get to the puddle of doom - its ... its big. And deep. And long. Given what happened to me at the XC before Xmas I'm a bit cautious of this. So I go a few steps off the path to circumnavigate through the trees (I'm not the ony one). The Rothwell Harriers go plunging though at least knee deep but manage to stay upright - all kudos to them! Lots of people fell here - I'll try to add some more photos.
The run walking is effective enough at keeping me going although it's turning into a long slog. Back through the underpass (Rothwell Harriers shout "Oggi, Oggi, Oggi!" to which there is only one answer - "Oi, Oi, Oi!") and back onto the Estate for the last three miles and the very hilly bits start again. Some epic mud slides here - my Scotts SuperTrax really prove their worth now in preventing those annoying slips and slides that so often seem to trigger post-race aches and pains. They also allow me to ascend effectively. It's been 50-50 walking and running for a while now.
The Estate has a least a couple of farms and at one point we cross a farm track that is a sea of mud - a rapid "prancing pony" stride seems to be the best way of getting across this gloop-fest. It's huge! The prance across works without falls and minimal water ingress.
Suddenly the mile markers are saying 8 miles then 9 - not far now! But my watch thinks differently - and so it proves as the "last mile" disappointingly turns out to be rather longer than that. A long, long slope up to the house (same as the parkrun finish here) can only be walked and then to the final field where feet are now very sore and I trot round to a time of 2:09 and a distance (Garmin) of 16.2km, ascent 180m, overall position in the 720s out of almost 800 runners.
To my surprise I'm not the slowest in my age category (yay) and it's not been too bad (double-yay). Need to think about footwear (wrong socks or need a half size bigger?). The marshals were lovely and I have a new tech top. As I leave the field a lovely Darlington runner catches me up and passes me the tech top - I'm so weary I didn't notice it fall off my back. Profuse thanks to him and then back to find my fellow club runners and swap stories. Happy days.
yes, celebrations were made, but as this involved my first alcohol since Boxing Day I fell asleep after the first glass! 
A beat the heat 10 miles 😁
The Vasty Fields of France
Last run of the year
