Clive Cookson 10K, 17th May 2023

Thanks to Lucy Keating for sending this excellent report of the Clive Cookson 10K:

Six Claremont runners ran the annual Clive Cookson 10K in Monkseaton on Wednesday night, organised with the usual friendly efficiency by North Shields Poly.

It’s two x 5k laps of a route around Monkseaton High School, and is billed as ‘flat and fast’, but for those who have run it, the long slow drag up Rake Lane for the first two kilometres feels interminable (and hey, they then make you do it a second time!). However, as the race organiser said in his amusing pre-race email, “only 2 miles goes up Rake Lane, and that means 4.21 miles is spent not going up Rake Lane, so obviously that means it’s flat and fast”.

Certainly, the rest of the route is much more forgiving, and there’s always a lovely early summer feel to the event. It’s quite tightly packed in the first two kilometres, which at least prevents you from zooming off too fast (as if).

It was nice to catch up with fellow Claremonters before and afterwards. I can’t comment knowledgeably on anyone’s performance, but I do know that Jose absolutely smashed his 10K PB, and also very well done to Lynne Cornell who was third in her age category. From my own point of view, I was chuffed to beat my two most recent times for this race, for which I heartily thank the Claremont club runs!

The highlight of the Clive Cookson is of course the race t-shirt, which always has a music theme. In recent years, it’s encompassed The Velvet Underground, The Ramones, Joy Division, and 2 Tone (my personal fave), and this year we were transported to the baggy early 90s and Madchester Rave On. Doing it long, long, long, long was certainly on my mind up Rake Lane, but who knows, maybe my student days dancing to those never-ending Madchester EPs did actually give me some stamina…. However, I am concerned that the t-shirt selection is getting more recent with each year, and thus that I’ll soon fail to get the reference….

Thank you once again to North Shields Poly, and well done to all the Claremont runners!