Albert Park Leap Year Trot 6K

Taking advantage of an extra day in the year which happened to be a Saturday, two runners from New Marske Harriers set up a one-off race over the rarely-run distance of 6K. Grantham Running Club’s Peter Bonner took part in the Leap Year Trot charity event for SeeAbility (The Royal School for the Blind), which took place in Albert Park, Middlesbrough. 

The course utlilised the traffic-free paths inside the perimeter of the park, using the same route as the two lap weekly parkrun, except running three laps anti-clockwise to finish at the visitors’ centre. To ensure the exact distance, the start was a few metres away from the finish. 

The windy conditions combined with the slight hills in the park to leave the odd kilometres noticeably slower than the even ones. Many of the participants chose to enjoy the race rather than race at full speed. This lack of competitiveness gave a very friendly feel to the race, with lots of support from the marshals and other runners on different laps.

The race was chip-timed, but unfortunately suffered from computer issues which delayed the start. The lack of experience from the Race Director showed at this point, leaving the runners shivering on the start line rather than communicating early and allowing people to wait inside. Once the race started however, everything went smoothly.

The race was won by Keith Bindoff of Middlesbrough & Cleveland Harriers in 22:49 with GRC’s Peter finishing second in 23:36, with Michael Meggs third. Both Keith and Peter had run parkrun earlier that day, with Keith having been round Albert Park in the opposite direction in 19:11 whilst Peter had a much more scenic jog round the quays on the Tees Barrage parkrun. The first female home was Isobel Nicholls, an U15 runner from the City of York AC. She was recovering from illness but still managed 26:29. There were 66 finishers, all completing in under an hour and with an average finish time of 37½ minutes.

The goody bag after the event included a stamped medal, food and drink, a Middlesbrough FC pencil and some cooling foot lotion. Speaking afterwards Peter said that he really enjoyed the race and would do any future events in that series, though would prefer it to have been a little closer to home.