Social & Information

Arriving at Hest Bank (the finishing point of the race) in plenty of time we had a walk onto the sands / mud to see what the conditions looked like. The conditions were fairly firm sand with just a touch of mud and plenty of puddles. After a quick run on the beach, Heath and I opted for road shoes, whilst Fiona and Emma decided on trail shoes.

At 12:45 it was time to pile onto the coaches for a 60 minute ride up and around the river estuary to the start at Flookburgh, which was a desolate and windy place on arrival.

Before the race started there were no usual pre-race warnings about keeping to the left etc. Instead we were told not to deviate away from flags marking the route or we risked vanishing into quick sands.

Finally the race set off into the wind on a rough track for a few hundred metres, before entering sands, which were flat with fairly shallow puddles. After about a quarter mile the route bared left, and the wind was now behind the runners helping everyone to run fast, but the front-runners were already vanishing into the distance.

At the 5 mile point the River Kent channel was in sight and there were no markers or marshals to point the way across. The Channel looked at least 200m wide, but how deep was it? Then quad bikes appeared at the far side, so it was into the water and I kept running, but after a short distance the water was 15cm above knee level and getting colder. There was no choice but to start wading, half way across three runners / waders passed me. Finally I was out of the water with numb feet and legs and it was a right turn back into the wind!

The next 5 miles were just hard work with the wind in front, it was over firm sand with a few more water channels to cross. At last, I reached the 10-mile marker, where the route turned left and the wind was now behind again. The sand was firm, with the wind blowing sand over the route for the next 2 miles. Then there was another water channel to run through before a right turn back into the wind. Quickly looking behind to find there was no one very close, I just kept plodding into the wind to the finish.

Harriers results out of 237 finishers:

• Raymond Hall
• 8th overall (1st over 60), 1:31:53
• Heath Reilly
• 90th overall, 1:47:40
• Emma Vincent
• 13th lady, 1:51:49
• Fiona Murphy
• 24th lady, 4th over 50 lady, 1:58:07