Ferriby 10 Miler - Coach Dave's first race of 2023

Coach Tune’s Race Report Ferriby 10 mile road race

This year we will bring you a personal race report from members of our community which we hope you will enjoy reading

This Sunday saw many of the Team Blizard guys taking on the long standing Ferriby 10 mile road race which starts and finishes at Skidby Mill near Hull.

The race is hosted by the local City of Hull running club and started way back in 1954 and has always been a popular race for the local running community.

I personally have run in it many times and looking back in my old running diaries on Sunday night after the race my first time when I was a 15 year old!

I have been lucky enough to have won the race outright on two occasions, albeit on the old course.

The Ferriby 10 has a “special place” in my heart as it was within this race that I managed to duck under the magical 50 mins barrier for the first time many moons ago!

Fast forward nearly 30 years to this year’s event which I entered and used as my first race of the year.

Training has been going well since the Yorkshire marathon but I have done little to no speedwork since the marathon so was not expecting a fast time but needed a race to help elevate my fitness a little before we head out on our annual warm weather training camp to Portugal in a few week’s time.

The course starts at Skidby Mill and the first 5 miles are undulating before turning back just after halfway where the elevation eases off and some fast running can be had.

With no real expectation comes zero nerves as myself and Disco Dave did a gentle couple of miles to warm up before stripping off and putting on our “super shoes”!

My race day tactics were very simple in that I wanted to get to halfway feeling comfortable before hopefully picking the pace up in the second half.

The wind and hills in the first half were safely negotiated and I hit a 5 mile split of 31.05mins but this did not worry me as I knew the second half is much quicker and time can be made up.

Turning back towards Skidby there was a nice line of runners ahead of me to aim for and one by one I seemed to be able to pick them off right up until just after 8.5 miles and then for the final 10 minutes I ran side by side with a guy from East Hull Harriers as we helped each other along.

The final part of the race is a nasty uphill finish where my new friend in red just thought that he could not let an old bloke beat him and just sprinted off leaving me to struggle up the final few hundred meters to the finish.

Jenny later mentioned that she actually thought I was crying at this stage as I looked so rough!

Turning into the finish straight I managed to lift the pace for the final few meters to sneak under 60 mins and take the V50 win.