St Aidans Half Marathon
Report by Andy Purl
A new event for the diary, but a race that nearly didn’t happen – the St Aidans Half Marathon.
Emails sent prior to the event suggested the race might need to be cancelled, and with the river rising fast, there was instruction the event might become just 8 miles.
In fact the first person I saw at race HQ was a person wearing a full wet suit, so despite the deluge of rain forecast, it was a surprise to race without rain, and a golden orb in the sky also made an appearance!
The race starts from St Aidans RSPB reserve, near Castleford, along very boggy paths until finding the aforementioned river. The next stage was along the riverside path, passing some industrial heritage along the way until reaching Fairbirn Ings RSPB reserve.
Here we climbed up, onto the old slag heaps and ran along cinder trails back on to the riverside path until reaching St Aidans. A long section including Yorkshire’s largest
puddles followed, inducing a very nervy slide towards the river, which by now was less than a foot from a full breach! The final 2 miles were along a well made track to the finish at about 13 miles (ish).
I would love to recount all the rare species of birds I saw in this glorious area for the twitchers amongst you, but I spent the majority of the race staring at my shoes.
Would thoroughly recommend to anyone fancying a flat multi terrain race, but bring a pair of flippers, just in case!
For the record Sarah Bromiley and I completed the race, avoiding any embarrassment of winning a prize.