Friends had recommended this race but for the last few years it has clashed with my favourite half marathon. However this year it was a week earlier due to the change in high tide times and so I set up a reminder and entered in the first hour of entries opening.

It seems the race sold out much earlier than in previous years and many runners were taken by surprise and missed entry. The race organisers did all they could to accommodate transfers by setting up a Facebook waiting list and even after the transfer deadline had passed bent over backwards to allow transfers until 2 days before the event. In all honesty I was fed up of the whining about the race being full and late requests for transfers after the deadline on Facebook and the guy dealing with transfers was an angel with how he dealt with it!

Numbers were posted out which meant on the day registration wasn't required and getting to the start and using the bag drop was easy. The race HQ was at the Spa, which has great facilities, though the toilet queues were very long.

The start area had well marked time zones and wasn't too crowded despite around 2,200 runners.

I loved the course; a run from the Spa along Scarborough seafront, with a loop around the edge of Peasolm Park through the open air theatre, around the Sealife Centre and then back straight along the seafront. The course was mainly flat except for a few short steady inclines with nothing too steep. However Storm Brian meant that sections of the race into strong headwinds made it tough!

The race had a nice mix of very fast runners, club runners of varying abilities, charity runners and people running their first 10k, which meant that the course wasn't too congested and there was a large spread of finish times.

On course support was excellent with runners supported by day trippers as well as family and friends, and the fun runs following the main race offered lots of spectator encouragement to the children running.

The race technical t shirt and medal were top class.

Another bonus was that Scarborough was perfect for post race fish and chips with clubmates!

An excellent race I'll definitely be hoping to do again.