Race Date: Sunday 9th July 2024
Race Report by Katelyn McKeown
Northbrook 10K VS Two Castles Run
So, I have completed another Midlands 10K and thought I would take the opportunity to provide a review of this alongside the Two Castles which took place on June 9th.
Northbrook is a running club in Coventry and the 10K is one of their annual events. It takes place on closed roads and visits leafy green lanes and villages, adjacent to Coventry’s industrial north-west. Like fellow Coventry clubs Massey Ferguson RC and Sphinx AC (Rolls Royce), Northbrook has connections to the city’s trade heritage, using Jaguar Sports and Social Club as it’s home base. These days the Jag club sits alongside Amazon, a huge site which homes the major employer of the day – perhaps while they are voting on whether to adopt a Union (GMB) they will also elect to join Northbrook AC en-masse. Free parking and off-road bike lanes for warming up were readily available at Amazon-entry.
The Northbrook 10K is a very clubby run. Most people there are in vests and there are relatively few have-a-go heroes – this is in sharp contrast to Two Castles. Two Castles in a beloved, family friendly event of the kind that many people do annually as their sole running venture. The elevation and general environment of Northbrook make it comparable to the various courses of the South Yorkshire Road Leagues 5-mile races – there is plenty of elevation in the initial miles followed by a steady decline towards a potentially fast finish.
My experience at Northbrook was that I really enjoyed the event and course did not present a problem in terms of elevation, however lack of sleep and lots of busy days leading up to the event meant that my time was consistently over where I would have expected it to be on every mile. This was absolutely fine as it was not a race I had pinned any specific hopes on, and the fact that all the logistics, facilities and atmosphere were spot on meant that it was just a fun morning out.
Northbrook really did themselves proud with the finishing offering – there was a medal that was pretty cool looking, but much better than that, a really excellent emblazoned tote bag with, drumroll please, a bag of Wotsits and a four finger Kitkat inside; I can honestly say that it was the first time I have devoured the entire contents of my goody bag.
Two Castles was a very different fish. Both the 2C and Northbrook are among the 10 fixtures that make up the Warwickshire Road Race League. Where Northbrook could be defined as a runners run, 2C is much more of a festival feel, day out kind of vibe. The fact that it is a point-to-point run, beginning in Warwick Castle and ending in Kenilworth Castle means logistics for 2C are a bit more of a hassle. My little bro had managed to locate some of his London friends at Cov Parkrun on the Saturday and enlist their dad to drop us to the start line, meaning we could leave our car in Kenilworth and get straight off at the end. Even so, queueing to get into medieval Warwick along with every other runner in the Midlands and their entire family was a long process.
Although the run gathers everyone inside the walls of Warwick Castle, the start line is actually outside, down a little cobbled lane. This means that when the gun goes off, several thousand runners begin the slow process of funnelling themselves through the portcullis and into the narrow lane, before starting running a hundred metres or so further on. My brother was slightly enraged that there was a front pen that was only admissible to members of the local clubs, eg Kenilworth, Warwick, Spa Striders…Our London friend revealed himself as a second claim Kenilworth and took himself to the front line, proceeding to come 10th to Joe’s paltry 50th!
The rest of us unfortunates who had not joined a running club for the sole purpose of getting through the portcullis in a timely manner were left to fend for ourselves in what felt at times like a very medieval mob. For context, I was not late to the start and did not try to hang back, but there was almost 17 minutes between my chip and gun time.
Both Joe and I experienced that for the whole duration of the race we were running alongside people going at very different paces – so even going into Kenilworth Castle I was still weaving around people that were running a far slower time, and likewise some people were blasting past me until close to the end. This made the whole experience feel a bit cramped and chaotic. I also experienced a race first sometime soon after mile one – my right foot completely went from under me and sent me crashing down hard on to my left side and head. I scraped myself up, and of course being such a friendly run there were lots of sympathetic people wanting to stop and assist. However, I opted for that weird side run, hobble thing you do after a fall and got back on my way. These issues and the memento of bog-standard tech t-shirt at the end mean that I would be far more inclined to return to Northbrook than Two Castles next year.
Please find below a handy summary of some of the relevant stats.
Northbrook | Two Castles | |
Cost | £18.00 | £29.00 |
Runners | 536 | 3974 |
Castles | 0 | 2 |
Cool bag and snacks | 1 | 0 |
The Northbrook 10k was won by Ian Allen of Spa Striders in a time of 31:44. Zara Hadfield of Leamington C & A took the 1st women’s prize in 39:16.
Striders Results:
Position | Name | Category | Time |
328 | Katelyn McKeown | F35 | 00:55:08 |
Full results for Northbrook 10k can be viewed here. The results for the Two Castles have been published already, if you want to revisit them you can do so here.