I have taken part in the Sunderland City 10k on a couple of occasions, but this was the first time I have entered the half.
I arrived a little late and did not see many fellow Sedgefield Harriers; only Pete King (hard to miss at 6ft 5in) and Chris Lines who was involved in PR for the event.
My target was 1hr 38 but the heat, lack of long runs to prepare and quite a few beers on Friday night hampered my efforts. I was on target to 10 miles but at the bottom of the Roker Park Hill I knew that I was going to struggle from there on in, which I did finishing in 1hr 42. I had the words of an old rugby coach ringing in my head “Failure to prepare is preparation to fail”. Very apt.
There were some good runs from the Harriers which are summarised below:
| 41 | Ben Smale | Male | HM-MO | Sedgefeld Harriers | 01:25:35 |
| 67 | Declan Munnelly | Male | HM-M40 | Sedgefeld Harriers | 01:28:22 |
| 270 | Simon Cavey | Male | HM-M40 | Sedgefeld Harriers | 01:42:56 |
| 386 | Peter King | Male | HM-M50 | Sedgefeld Harriers | 01:46:31 |
| 596 | Ian Spencer | Male | HM-M50 | Sedgefeld Harriers | 01:54:24 |
| 1028 | Sarah Horner | Female | HM-FO | Sedgefeld Harriers | 02:18:19 |
There were three in the 10K also (not seen Gary Auston for a while good to see him back running):
| 148 | Gary Auston | Male | 10K-M40 | Sedgefeld Harriers | 00:46:21 |
| 995 | Anne Gladwin | Female | 10K-F40 | Sedgefeld Harriers | 01:02:07 |
| 1266 | Jayne Freeman | Female | 10K-F40 | Sedgefeld Harriers | 01:06:24 |
Results are copied from the website, note the spelling error which is not mine!
Views on the event:
Parking and Accessibility Good (I found a free car park but not sure if all car parks are free on a Sunday)
Organisation Very good
Baggage Store Good to have a store very close to start and finish
Course Urban (buildings provided some useful shelter from the sun), lots of turns and hillier than I thought it would be
Weather Hot – don’t have an official temp for the day but felt like 20 degrees plus
Cost High at over £30 but I felt it was fair bearing in mind the cost to host is likely to be high (road closures etc).
Goody Bag Mixed; included a protein bar which despite my hunger was inedible and a fruit drink in a can (even though the contents were flat) which was not to my liking either.
This is my first race rundown which is passed on to Pete King for approval. Given his job, I have been panicking about my English. I have thrown in a few commas and semicolons but I have no idea if they are in the correct place! English was not my best subject at school.
By Simon Cavey
Editor’s notes: other than to correct a height error (6’5” not 6’8”) no other amendments were required 🙂; additional to the club spelling mistake in the results, the runner in position 386 also won’t actually be in the M50 category until next time…
