Brass Monkey Half Marathon 2016

The Brass Monkey Half Marathon is a very popular race as on the right day it can provide a great opportunity for getting a cherished PB. The course starts and finishes at York Racecourse and it is on closed country roads on an out and back route with a little loop at the far end and it’s pretty flat. It’s had a few problems in recent years though. It is in January so the weather is likely to be an issue. Three years ago it was called off due to snow and ice making the course dangerous and the previous year a very strong side wind gusting up to 50mph put paid to any PB ambitions for many. The online entry system has also been a stumbling block as lots of people try to enter as soon as it opens to try and ensure they get one of the limited number of places. This year to try and spread out the demand it opened at 6:30am on a Saturday morning and it seemed to work well, complete with a neat queuing system that told you at regular intervals how many people were ahead of you in the entry queue so you could work out how long it would be before you got in. However it did sell out within 80 minutes so only the early birds got in.

I definitely wasn’t thinking PB when I went to bed before race day. Snow had been falling in Leeds all evening and there was about an inch on the ground in my garden in Headingley. So I was half expecting an early morning cancellation when I got up. But the messages on Facebook said it wasn’t too bad over in York and this year the organisers – York Knavesmire – had arranged their own road gritting so the course was ice free. I’d managed to cadge a lift from the Mason’s who were taking Tom over to race his first Brass Monkey and they duly turned up on time and we headed off towards York. And indeed as we approached York the snow on the ground got less and less and although the temperature was close to zero it actually looked like ideal running conditions with hardly any wind either. Now if only I’d not skimped so much on training and put a few more quality miles in my legs.

There were only a dozen Hyde Park Harriers taking part this year. A few had been put off by the problems in previous years and others had chosen to try a bit of fell racing over at the Stanbury Splash which was in the club’s Fell Championship and Club Competitor Competition. So this small but perfectly formed band of Hyde Park Harriers met up in the impressive stand at the racecourse being used as race HQ before heading out to the starting position to join the other 1500 or so intrepid half marathoners.

The Hyde Park Harriers did really well with most getting PBs. Here’s how they got on.

The race was won by Dan Kestral of Barnsley AC in 1:08:32. First lady home was Sharon Barlow of Darlington Harriers in 1:18:33. There were 1503 finishers before the cutoff time. David Womersley was 4th VM60 and I was 5th VM55.

My PB was totally unexpected. I didn’t think I was anywhere near that sort of form. But my legs enjoyed themselves with the rare treat of running on the flat after all my training runs on the hills of Leeds. Unlike the last two years I even had enough left at the end for a bit of a sprint finish. There were seven other PBs by the Hyde Park Harriers. Tom Mason knocked an impressive three minutes off his previous best.

There was the usual nice hi-viz long sleeved shirt for all the finishers – perfect for those night time winter training runs. This year’s colour is orange.

Full results are here: https://www.resultsbase.net/Results/IndividualResults.aspx?Id=3191

Some great photos from York Knavesmire are available here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/128440813@N04/albums