The Croome Capability Canter

The Croome Capability Canter is a 6.5 mile race in the grounds of National Trust Croome in Worcestershire. I recently took part, along with lots of members of my running club. Organised by Black Pear Joggers running club in Worcester, it was the last race of the season on our club’s off-road race series. I’ve taken part in most races in the series and already know I’ve won my age category, but I was happy to do one final race.

It was quicker to get to Croome than I anticipated and I arrived before 8am for a 9am start. Parking was in the Croome grounds and was well directed by marshals from Black Pear Joggers. We’d been warned that parking was ‘limited’, but there seemed to be plenty. Registration was in a small building close to the car park. When I arrived, it was quick. Later in the morning, there were big queues.

The toilets were the Croome toilets, also very close to the car park. Unfortunately, there were only three cubicles, which served both men and women and the queues were HUGE. There was a single disabled cubicle, so some people chose to queue for that one instead. In trying to get the queues moving quicker, runners were even offered the option of using the Changing Places toilet, with a caveat that they might accidentally get locked in! I’m not sure many people were willing to risk that.

Just round the corner from the toilet block is the main visitor centre and coffee shop. This has toilets. Unfortunately, it doesn’t open until 9am. With the sheer volume of runners hitting the coffee shop after the run, it would probably have been worth paying a staff member or two to open the building up at 8am or even 8:30.

The start and finish area was around a five minute walk away. The finish line was in front of the church on site and a lot of people used the semi-sheltered porch of the church as an unofficial bag drop (there wasn’t an official, secure bag drop). It was a very cold morning, so everyone had spare clothes. We’d also been warned to take spare clothes because of the water crossing on the course.

Inevitably, the 9am start got delayed by 10 minutes because of the toilet queues. This wasn’t ideal when everyone was cold, but at least it wasn’t raining! The start line was down the hill from the church and the first thing we had to do was run back up to the church. It was steep and the grass was long. There were no timing chips for the race, so it was completely gun timed. As I ran up the hill, I felt I’d probably started a bit too far back in the pack and needed to get in front of people. Needless to say, I was exhausted by the top of the hill! Then I was delighted that there was a downhill and ran quickly down it.

As I reached the 1k sign, I remembered that this was a 10K race and I probably needed to slow down a bit. Although the terrain meant that slowing down was inevitable.

Croome Park is a beautiful place and the Croome Capability Canter is a beautiful course. It’s called ‘Capability’ because the grounds were designed by renowned 18th century landscape architect Capability Brown.

There was a pleasant, fairly flat bit past the main house, with Christmas lights strung up along the way. The terrain was fairly up and down for about the first third of the route. It then moved out of the more formal surroundings close to the house onto fields and woodland. The exact order is all a blur.

The rain the previous day had been horrendous. So we had incredibly muddy fields, where I struggled to stay upright and we had flat fields, with very slippy grass.

We ran alongside the lake, then over quite a steep wooden bridge. We were told to slow right down on the bridge, as it was very slippy. There were plenty of marshals on the course – the one by the bridge offering to catch runners who fell! There were also arrows and tape in the trees to mark the course.

There was a water station at about 5k. I was unaware of this as I hadn’t received all the emails about the race, so I’d carried my own drink with me. Even in November, a hilly 10k is a bit far to run without a drink, in my opinion.

At about four miles – the marshal told us ‘straight on through the ford!’. The ford was running straight through Croome River, which was thankfully shallow and narrow. It was only when I got my feet soaked running through the river that I realised the rest of my body had finally warmed up.

Around 8k, we ran through a woodland. The path here was very narrow and very winding. At this point, the tape in the trees was invaluable, because I definitely wouldn’t have known where I was without it.

I could hear another woman close behind me and was determined to stay ahead of her. In the end, I beat her by 18 seconds. The age categories for this race were the 10-year categories rather than the five-year categories, so I was in the 45-54 category. I I knew there would be no age category win for this 52 year old!

We emerged from the woodland onto a tarmac path. And then we were back in open parkland and I could see the church on top of the hill. I just had to get there! I overtook a man at the bottom of the hill. He said ‘Well done’ to me, but I knew he would overtake me almost immediately – and he did. He kept telling me I could do it. I kept pushing up the hill and my breathing was so loud. If I hadn’t been so close to the finish line, I definitely would have walked.

I crossed the line in 53:50 – 15th female, third in my age category and first female for the club for the first time ever on an off-road race.

All finishers got a nice metal medal and a bottle of water, plus a bag of popcorn, a piece of fruit and/ or a chocolate biscuit. You could have all three if you wanted!

I really enjoyed the Croome Capability Canter and would be happy to run it again.