Scunthorpe 10k

Yes you read that correctly: Scunthorpe. A friend of mine works down there so we thought it would be a good excuse to start a lads weekend with a bit of exercise.

The race was on Friday night and the course runs from the local sports centre and generally round the houses in a sort of figure of 8. There seemed to be a constant slope of either a slight incline or decline up to the start of mile 4 where the real highlight begins – a hill that lasts a mile! My favourite! Was a slog up there for me, I've got my split time for that mile and I'm embarrassed to publish it. It was hot though, probably mid twenties, even with the evening start.

Results are below, I almost managed a PW in c44mins, Alec Davidson showed his class with a 5^th place and 36.59 despite supposedly taking it easy and our host William Cranston had a brilliant result of 40.29 in his first 10k (Although it just about killed him and he got another look at his lunch).

http://www.scunthorpeathletics.com/tenKresults2010.xls

So what of Scunthorpe? Well I knew nothing of the place 'cept the name but the reaction from most people when I said I was heading down was generally negative, which may be because of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem. It is essentially your typical English town with brown brick houses (not red for some reason) and plenty of mature trees. They are obviously a house proud bunch because all the houses and gardens and roads and the town centre were all very well kept. The elephant in the corner of course is the steel works. Hundreds and hundreds of acres of absolutely colossal manufacturing, it's all extremely impressive. Employing c6000 people it's the very foundation of the whole place and when recession hits – folk notice. To add to the pressure Corus steel is an Indian company so who knows what the future holds. So yes, I wouldn't leave your comfy UNESCO world heritage city for a day trip down but Scunny ain't that bad and the weather is amazing!