Race Date: Sunday 16th November 2025

The final cross country race of the 2024/25 season, the National at Parliament Hill, required a 12mm or 15mm spike. Come Clifton Park next season, baked rock hard after a hot dry summer, 9mm spikes are more suitable but one of the old spikes is firmly stuck in place. Spike keys are quite soft (to stop the spike being overtightened in the first place) and soon become deformed and coach’s mole grips don’t work either even after some WD40 or soaking with penetrating oil.

Apart from buying some new shoes the assistance of an engineer with skill, a decent workbench and either a left handed drill bit or bolt extractor is required. The YouTube video said that even then this doesn’t always work. This process also involves sawing off the spike and then filing it down so, by now, you’ve really burned your bridges as there’s no spike left at all. Luckily, coach knows an engineer who managed to do the job in his lunch break the clever lad. He recommended greasing your spikes first to stop it happening again but in the heat of battle, between warm up and changing spikes before the race, this isn’t top of the agenda. Alternatively, slightly loosen your spikes after each race so that they don’t get stuck in the first place but remember to tighten them before the next race.

The offending shoe, sans spike. Size UK4.5.

Storm Claudia hit the country on the Friday before the race with heavy rain bringing flooding at Endcliffe, Millhouses, and Penistone Parkruns all of which were cancelled. So, there was action on Saturday evening as the longer spikes went in although, as it turned out, the largely grassland course itself had drained well with only a couple of genuinely muddy spots to negotiate on each lap. Stil, with an uncomfortable 150m stretch of tarmac/hardcore it’s always a decision here between the comfort of trail shoes or the more secure grip afforded by spikes, especially useful on the steeper gradients.

In the women’s race, Abbie Haworth ran her first league race of the season leading the field home in 24:21 with Caroline Brock close behind as first F35 for the third race in a row. Not to be outdone, Abbie’s husband Dan Howarth (Hallam) won the men’s race. This Mr and Mrs pairing could become a feature after they both had podium finishes on the fells last week. Power to Carol Beattie who, with three victories under her belt, is currently top of the F70 rankings.

Leading ladies Abbie and Caroline. This must be before the race as there’s no sign of any mud.

It was interesting talking about the event after the race as whilst some found it tougher than the previous contest at Longley others thought that, with both having about the same amount of climb, the better going underfoot at Penistone made this race the easier. One of the lads, sporting his new spikes, seemed to be having a decent race with a couple of other Steel City to pull him along but on the next lap he was 100m/200m off the pace. It turned out that his shoe lace had come undone. Places are hard enough to gain as it is and this is usually the sort of error that you only make once in your running career. Proving that things do really come in three’s he then confessed that he might have fared better with longer spikes and had also run off the course briefly, ignoring the finish funnel, but fortunately didn’t lose any places despite his desire to run a fifth lap.

Finn Cross looking as though he’s kissed the turf along the way.

Senior and Veteran Ladies. (6500m official, 130m climb on Strava) 12 of the 153 finishers were Steel City.