Newcastle-Gateshead Marathon, Half-Marathon & 10k, 5th May 2024

The Newcastle-Gateshead Half-Marathon & 10k expanded to include the marathon this year. Cate Walker sends this report:

“A grey, muggy day awaited us at Gateshead Stadium for this event, which had representation from Claremonters in the marathon, half, 10k and the volunteer squad too.

As anticipated, the stadium was great for building a sense of anticipation, but I felt surprisingly relaxed. It may have been the relative informality and fairly small scale of the event, compared to the other half marathons I have done which have felt like mega events. The size also meant I naturally ran into all the other Claremonters except for Lynne before the race, and it was also lovely later on to be able to pick out some smiling Claremonters among the spectators or – in the case of Heather, Tom and Catherine – out for a standard Sunday run on the Quayside.

I was aiming to beat my previous PB, from last Autumn, of 1:55:50, and was feeling reasonably confident but also well aware, having done the Baltic Winter route a few times, of the protracted uphill to the stadium and that I would need to do it twice.

I tried to set off at around 8:30, just behind the 1:50 pacer, but found myself naturally running faster, so just enjoyed the first half without paying too much attention to pace, although I could see I was averaging about 8:20 miles. Some blue sky wouldn’t have gone amiss, and the mugginess made me think I should have gone with the vest rather than t-shirt option, but overall conditions were good, spirits seemed high and smiles were on display among runners and spectators alike.

Around 7.4 miles in, I became aware of the 1:50 pacer just behind me and started to have to dig in a little more to stay ahead. Twice I saw the sign ‘The zombies are right behind you!’ and thought, ok, the zombies aren’t, but the pacer is!

On the second run across the Swing Bridge towards the Newcastle side, the pacer almost overtook but I pushed on, wondering if I could get to 11 miles before he overtook. In the end it was about 11.5 miles in when he overtook me on the way back across the same bridge.

The last mile was hard but I could see that I had built up enough leeway to beat my PB short of something dramatic happening. Some encouraging words from Jack Shawcross, on unofficial pacing duty, as he ran past in that last mile, were a welcome boost, and before I knew it, I was entering the stadium almost exactly as my watch flipped onto 1:50:00.

A brief sprint(ish) to the sound of California Dreaming (well, indeed) playing in the stadium and I was at the finish line, with my watch recording 1:51:21 (the official chip time was 1:51:07). It was lovely to receive the medal from none other than Lucy who ‘crowned’ me ‘queen of Claremont’ (one of many of us of course!), and the euphoric rush meant that was how I felt in the moment. A fitting end to a challenging but rewarding morning.”

Well done everyone, and congratulations to both Cate and Lynne for finishing 3rd and 1st in their respective age categories!

10k
Position	Runner	Time
115	Lynne Cornell (1st VW60)	49:07
548	Lena Lou	70:35

Half-marathon
Position	Runner	Time
276	Cate Walker (3rd VW40)	1:51:07

Marathon
Position	Runner	Time
318	Nina Jensen	4:33:05

_{more photos to follow}