Race to the Castle - 26 June
Report by Kim Holden
On Saturday I took part in the Race to the Castle in Northumberland. A 100 km, 62 mile, event which starts at Kirkharle and finishes at Bamburgh Castle. It can either be completed as a one day, non-stop event, as I did, or a two day race, camping overnight near Morpeth.
Up until a couple of days before I was unsure whether to take part or not as everything seemed to conspire against it. However, in the end I decided to go ahead, possibly fuelled by not wanting to waste the £129 it had cost to enter!
The day dawned dull and drizzly, and continued in the same vein, but didn’t manage to spoil the beautiful scenery on route or what turned out to be a very long but satisfying day meeting some lovely people on the way round and being well looked after at the most amazing pit stops I have ever seen. The only problems with the latter being that, once in, you were reluctant to come out and also that they were well set back from the race route, which I think caused the final mile tally to be 63.9 instead of the promised 62!
Of course the daylight is very lengthy at this time of year so head torches were not needed until after 10 pm when you were asked to join up with other runners for safety reasons. Along with Michael and Robin, my finish buddies, I marched in the last few miles with us all complaining about the extra distance and praising the organisation and what a great day we’d had in equal measure :)
My final time was 16:56 and I was placed 3rd in my age category.