3 Striders turned up for the Newton Fraction half marathon on a cold but bright sunny morning. With various other races including the Silverstone half on the same day it was encouraging to see so many runners entered – in fact I think the race had been a sell out prior to the day itself.
Other than 2 pretty horrendous hills I can’t praise this race enough!!! It started and finished at South Kesteven sports stadium in Grantham…..there was plenty of free parking, no queues to get race numbers, plenty of water stations (and jelly baby handouts) en route and a pretty decent goodie bag at the end (including a race t shirt). The route took in a few roads around the stadium to begin with and then straight onto the Nottingham canal path for a few miles…..which was pretty nice going for a sunny Sunday morning!
Mile 5 brought us into Woolsthorpe and this is where we hit the first of the steep hills – once recovered we had some miles on the road before hitting the brutal Casthorpe hill at mile 10……. I had been warned about this and although including plenty of hill training in my pre race runs it still got the better of me…..and a lot of other runners too.
Onwards and upwards quite literally we came back into Barrowby for the last few miles back to Grantham – this is where it really hurt and thankfully the time that all 3 strider runners seemed to meet up and give some words of encouragement to each other. We had a stadium finish – with one lap round before the finish line. A really good race and one I’d definitely recommend a go at!! Results – Mike Brighty 1:51:14, Sarah Procter 1:52:46 (pb), Louise Houghton 1:52:51 and John Hudson (representing first claim club, Barrow) 2:03:14. [Sarah]