2025 Frostbite

The race at the Hinchingbrooke Country Park frostbite had to be cancelled due to terrible conditions on the ground - a combination of very heavy rain, high water levels and ice build up led to the cancellation of the race permit by the council. Its great that Hunts AC were able to recshedule and unfortunate that the postponed fixture was immediately after the new Bawsey Frostbite and clashed with quite a lot of training plans for marathon trainees, and with the popular Stamford 30k the following weekend, numbers were lower than normal. Hats off to the organisers for reorganising rather than cancelling.

Organisation and Parking

Hunts AC who are the organisers of this race have, once again, made the hospital staff car park available free-of-charge for all participants. Its less than a 5 minute walk to the race HQ at the Countrysite Centre, and there is plenty of space. Marshals guide you into the correct route and there is no need to consider parking elsewhere, especially given the narrrow residential streets next to the park.

The race HQ has toilets and a large hall for changing and bag storage. A pop-up cafe was operating as well, with hot drinks and bacon rolls for the runners. A permenant cafe is also on the site but we were asked to use the pop-up one to prevent swamping the smaller one with runners when they also had regular park visitors to serve. Given the cold and wet weather conditions it was great to be able to change in the dry and have somewhere to leave your kit bag.

The Course

The course at Hinchingbrooke has changed over the many years Frostbite has been held there, and the current course is two circuits. This is entirely trail with no road section as there had been in previous years. The trail paths were a mixture of narrow, muddy, woodland sections and level crushed limestone paths, with occasional tarmac paths. It might be possible to wear spikes for much of the race but some of the more built-up trails might be unsuitable; and as I dont have any spikes I run this in trail shoes. Its was definitely not suitable for road shoes this year.

On The Day

The Junior race was a bit of a warning that the conditions were going to be, ... unique. Most of our runners went out one colour but returned in a fetching shade of mud. Even those that didn't fall over were covered with mud spray.

For the seniors the start was a wide grassy slope which quickly narrowed into a two-abreast woodland path which continued until the end of the first mile. This woodland section was deeply muddy with runners struggling to stay upright or get traction. Even the downhill section needed a good deal of caution and there were quite a few runners taking horizontal rest breaks.

After the 'mud mile' things settle down onto the flatter section on hard-packed paths; still muddy and wet, but much more runnable, and wider. These wind their way around various lakes and riverside paths, finally delivering you to the start for the second circuit; so once again, mud-fest time. The only thing to watch out for on the flat section were deep puddles across the paths, and the occasional crop of tree roots busting upwards - the roots were all sprayed with high-vis paint but it would be easy to miss one and trip.

It was nice to run a different course this year, and it was exciting and challenging to deal with the conditions. Suprising also to see how different runners cope with slippery mud - it seems some have the courage to simply charge and hope for the best, and others (perhaps wiser ?) stagger through it more cautiously. The 'chargers' didn't seem to fall any more often than the 'staggerers' so maybe there is a technique here; but one I don't possess, so I just staggered on....

Roll on Jubilee Park and the final race :-)