Cathedral to Castle 2021

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September 26th 2021

10 miles (road/)light trail

Cathedral to Castle is an end to end race from Lichfield to Tamworth, something I'd always fancied but never got around to. This year (well, last year actually) I'd entered with my husband as he does love a good bit of tarmac, and the Great Midland fun run (similar distance) had been cancelled.

Unfortunately, the night before he developed some sort of man flu (which mysteriously disappeared on the Monday after....) so I ended up going it alone. With no time in mind, I decided to run it. Really run it.

Wow, that was a bit of a shock to the newly better chest - after 4 weeks of illness! It was a general downhill out of Lichfield, but coming towards Hopwas Woods at about 5 miles was definitely uphill, with an unhelpful sandy and gravelly surface underfoot. The downhill was similarly just too steep to be of use, and by the time I reached the canal at the bottom and the 10k marker I was thoroughly tired. However, the surface flattened out and although I didn't look at my watch for the entire race as I ran to feel, I managed to clock three 7:35 miles in a row, surprisingly consistent.

The last mile was a mentally painful loop around the finish, but after sprinting a tad too early, I pushed and pushed, high-fived my baby boy on the line, and finished!

Reviewing the results later I'm thrilled at my standings. I don't race this sort of distance or surface at all, and given the majority seemed to be club runners I'm very pleased.









Times
Total time:  01:13:42

Standings
Gender category:          6/466        1%
Age category                5/143        3%
Overall category:        42/885        5%

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