Loftus Poultry Run 2013

Today I got up early and walked the dog, feeling okto say that last night was party night (works do) dinner and drinks made for a relatively late night for me. I completed my race outfit and set out at 8:35 to meet my friend Annette, she'd been to the shop for jelly babies. It being early, an elf and a mrs Christmas were getting odd looks from passing cars, Annette had endured this for an extra mile that it had taken her to walk to my street. We waited by the clock tower for our lift.

Shortly our Lift arrived, Jackie and Caroline, grinning at us because they were in running gear not fancy dres, yet. We had their costumes.

Off we travelled to Loftus. Loftus is a village/town between Redcar and Whitby. As we got nearer the skies darkened to reveal a beautiful rainbow to our left then suddenly it was raining, then sleeting and we could feel the wind buffeting the car. We joked about not running, but in my head I knew I would still run. But luckily as we arrived the dark skies clear. Jackie and Caroline put their outfits on, Caroline a snow girl and Jackie an elf. We registered an waited for Helen and Lester to arrive. Lester had a Santa outfit. Helen wore one of ours, she chose a snow girl. We sheltered in Loftus Leisure centre as long as possible before going out and huddling amongst the other festive runners, morph suits sumo wrestlers RabC Nesbit and Michael Jackson as well as trees, elves, Santas and snow people, with a smattering of runners in everyday running gear, there were about 400 of us all together.

We set off steadily and headed through a housing estate where people came out to watch the runners and cheer us along, the climb started, and for the next 2 1/2 miles we wound our way upwards, becoming more and more spread out. I pushed myself to stay with Helen and we regrouped with the other 4 at the water station and turned off the track to slog our way through a muddy field gradually going downwards but you wouldn't know, the win was strong and in our faces. We emerged into a village on the Whitby road and turned towards the coast, upwards again. We ran along the road, it looked like a herd of cattle had gone before, there was so much mud on the road from our shoes.

Soon enough we turned off the road and worked our way through a tunnel of trees and emerged into a field and farm yard, more mud, constantly working our way upwards again, onto a lane, left turn there was the mast at the highest point of the course, we regrouped again.

We now had 3 miles downhill ahead with only a couple of small rises, the views were stunning as we set off down to Loftus. It should have been simple, we should have flown down bug the head wind made it tough, you could feel it moving you as you fought it. Still we continued for 2 miles before a final regroup and we ran back through the housing estate towards the leisure centre together and a finish in 1:26:19. 2 Santas, 2 elves 2 snow girls from Ripon. Poultry run complete on a bright winters day.

As we'd arrived back in Ripon the skies once again darkened and the rain and sleet surrounded us. Bug as we passed under the A1 bridge it stopped. Just like that, one side of the bridge dark and sleety, the Ripon side blue skies. How wierd is that?