Blyth Valley 10K

Blyth Running Club organise two excellent 10K races that share about 50% of the route. Whilst the summer one is a more scenic route down the coast, the Blyth Valley 10K is still a nice race with some great coastal views. The route starts and Blyth Quayside and heads out past the park, joining the sea front after about 1.5 miles. There is then a slightly undulating path through the sand dunes to just past the half-way mark before returning straight back along the park.

This morning was not bad for running – mild and dry but with a fairly strong breeze from the South, meaning that we were running into the wind on the way out. I now realise that the sensible thing top do would have been to keep it steady into the wind and then go for it with the wind at our backs. As usual, I got it the wrong way round.

There was a smaller turnout from Claremonters than in previous years. I saw 5 others – Dave Manners, Graham Leslie, Paul Robinson, Heather and Alasdair. I set out with Heather and we were probably a bit further back in the pack than we should have been as we were overtaking a lot of runners in the very early stages. I was running without a watch, and I am useless at pacing myself, so I was glad to see Alasdair just ahead of me. I thought that I could took in behind him and use him as a pace maker. However as we were hitting the sea front, Alasdair decided that he was going too fast as stepped off the pace – I felt OK and so ploughed on ahead. It was starting to feel a bit tough running into the wind, so I was glad when we turned and headed back to Blyth. Unfortunately I couldn’t make the most of the wind assistance as I developed a bit of a stitch as was probably suffering from having gone out too quickly. After a difficult few minutes, I was myself again but didn’t have it in me to finish strongly. Heather overtook me in the last mile and went on to record her PB over 10K and Alasdair nearly caught me but not quite. Paul Robinson also recorded his 10K PB, so very well done to Heather and Paul.

This was the second time I have done this race and I will definitely be back again.

An honorable mention to Tom Oliphant, until very recently a Claremont member, who recorded an excellent time of 36:48 to finish in 34th place.