Grantham Running Club friends Stuart Baty and Simon Hartley made their annual trip to Suffolk to join some 800 other runners for the Adnams Southwold 10k road race. Being held in November the coastal weather can be relied upon to be unpredictable with previous years throwing up snow, ice and severe flooding. This year morning preparation began cold with the threat of heavy rain passing through, but by the start the skies had cleared and temperatures had risen enough to make base layers redundant.
The Southwold course is two and a half laps, mostly on tarmac roads, however the 800m section along the harbour is compacted gravel and even on a good day is more puddle than road, so cold wet feet is the norm from the start.
The final 400m to the finish outside the Red Lion is a challenging uphill drag, adding a net elevation gain of 31 metres on tired legs to the race.
Even so, the winning times were 00:32:33 (M) by Samuel Stevens of City of Norwich AC and 00:40:45 (W) by Kathy Wilson-Brown of Ipswich Jaffa RC.
Stuart and Simon were classified in the Vet 50s with Stuart running 52:04 in the wake of a tough year and Simon was pleased with a two and half minute improvement over last year in a time of 01:08:27.
The event typically sells out within minutes of going on sale, so the pair will be hoping to be lucky again to get places for 2026.
Photo credit: Adnams