The beautiful market town of Northallerton, situated in North Yorkshire, a little south of Darlington hosts an annual 10km run in association with a local charity, Pendragon Community Trust.
OK, so I always thought that Northallerton was flat! I did Northallerton 10k back in the late 90s/early 00’s and I don’t remember it being anything but your average town centre kinda 10km.
I entered this race in 2020, just before the pandemic and it was the last of my left over races left to execute so I toed the line in 2022, along with my Dad. A wee bit of a busy day was on the cards as there was a 10km race to run, two kids to get organised and we needed to be at a Christening by 1pm and then off at 3pm to Leeds. The pressure to get done as soon as possible was REAL!
We collected our numbers on the morning of the race in the Town Hall. This was exceptionally well organised and we were in & out in a whiff whaff.
A quick couple of laps of the High Street provided the setting for the warm up.
We lined up and where set on our way. At the very beginning there is some road closures in place but there are open roads along the course so it’s important just to be present whilst running. I would say that it’s not a run for music or podcasts to take away your attention from the job in hand (although I never run with any form of headphones so perhaps that’s easy for me to say!)
So, let’s get down to the stuff you wanna know – the course is predominantly on country roads (as I’ve said ~ some are open), there is a little section that’s on a farm track which was quite muddy, wet & rutty the year I did it (and from watching others ahead of me super-shoes didn’t like it very much 🙈). The course is UPHILL for the first 4 & 1/2 miles (Strava recorded my elevation at 377ft). Running at 10km effort that felt HARD! The remainder of the course is downhill, back through a housing area and back into the town centre. I have to say that the views down to the town when you hit the highest point where lovely, the country roads where beautiful and there was pockets of wonderful support out on the course.
There’s a little road crossing before you hit the town centre, it was extremely well traffic managed and didn’t cause any problems.
You get to run down the High Street to finish under the finish arch and there’s stacks of crowd & noise. A great vibe of a finish.
If you’re going to race a 10km (rather than run one ~ that absolutely isn’t meant to be in any way elite-ist and racing a 10km is about how close to your out & out max effort for that distance you are rather than the speed you’re going) then it’s meant to hurt. This one hurt just a wee bit more with the relentless uphill start.
So, what’s my synopsis?
➡️ Well organised
➡️ Nice views and lovely country lanes
➡️ Unlikely to be a PB course
➡️ A great finish in the High Street
➡️ Good support
