11th April 2004

Castle Camps is just the other side of Haverhill on the Suffolk/Cambridgeshire border. The terrain looked very similar to terrain around Stowmarket, slightly undulating with the odd short hill.

It was a very low-key event in its third year with little formality and a field of just under 100. It was classed as a fun run and I entered on the day, no forms to fill in, the women on the late entries table just wanted my name and age (and they could not believe I was 47, “You look so much younger”. They said).

The entry fee was only £5.00 and this included all the tea you could drink. From the start the race left the village and for the first mile or so it ran gently down hill, which means only one thing, there must be an uphill. The next three or four miles were a roller coaster ride up and down numerous short sharp hills. Over the last mile, the race ran gradually uphill back to the village. I only saw two cars during the whole race, which was all on small lanes through very picturesque countryside.

Overall, this was a very casual race, on a quite testing course. There were no distance markers and I only saw a handful of marshals. Therefore, I had a great incentive to keep in touch with the runner in front in case I came to a road junction and didn’t see which way they went. Without distance markers I wasn’t sure how far I had run but as I made my way up the hill back into the village I recognised the road and realised there was only a few hundred yards to go, my watch read 39.28 so with one last lung-bursting effort I raced to get under 40 minutes and just failed. With distance markers I could have paced my finish and beaten 40 minutes!

Chris Gladwell

The Stowmarket Striders results are:-