Wigan Trail 10k - Race Report

At first glance, this should be a relatively simple race – 10k, flat and trail (which means following a path that’s not tarmac, but doesn’t involve anything fell like). However, having run the race last year and remember thinking at the time that it was quite hard, I looked up my result from 2014 and saw that I did it in 44:46 (29th in field of 237), which was over three minutes outside of the PB I’d set a couple of weeks beforehand. As a result, I tipped up at the race somewhat apprehensive.

Soon after arriving at the clubhouse for registration I saw Alan Budenberg, who assured me that he’d hardly done any running since his marathon exploits in April as the weather had been good so he’d played a lot of golf – he didn’t comment if this was having a positive effect on his handicap or not. Soon after, I came across John Williams and his family – John kept his attendance quiet pre-race obviously hoping for some good points (sneaky that!). I then met our very own Mo Farah, Steven Henderson, who was looking somewhat stressed having had difficulty in getting out of his flat that morning due to some cycling event in Manchester. Finally, Ian Riggs arrived, having made a late decision to come along.

Once we’d all got our numbers etc, we were summoned to all walk the 500m or so to the start line. Usual starting positions were taken – Steven a few rows back (he should be on the front row, but obviously likes overtaking people during the race), John and I just behind him (me, because I like a suicidal fast start, and John because I guessed that he was going to track me initially and then move past me once I slowed to a sensible speed), with Ian and Alan a further few rows back.

A brief few words were said by the starter and we were off! Steven immediately started gliding through the field towards the front and I shot off to try and lose John! A nice and swift first kilometre followed, which near enough killed me, and I’d like to say that the race settled down. However, from my point of view, it never really did and I spent the next 9 kilometres trying to breathe and hang on.

The course was roughly two laps around a lake. However, there were so many twists and turns, sections through the trees, across grass fields and along trails that it was difficult to work out exactly where you were on the first lap. The second lap was much the same, with a bit of déjà vu. I couldn’t tell you exactly when John, as expected, passed me, but it was probably around the 2 mile mark (apologies John if it was sooner) and he steadily moved away from me.

Finally we passed the ‘start’ line and I knew it was only about 500m to the finish. Exiting the trail, I glanced over my shoulder and saw I had a good 100m on the next runner, so reappearing on the sports field in front of the clubhouse for the finish I could finally ease off. I crossed the line almost a minute quicker than last year, which explains why I felt so bad, but in 29th for the second year running.

Steven was there waiting, as usual, looking as though he hadn’t just run, as usual, along with John. Soon after I finished, Ian came in, closely followed by Alan.

As I said at the start, this should be a relatively simple race – 10k, flat and trail – but as with last year, a deceptively hard one! Nice one to run though and a great pie and peas afterwards!