2016 Championship - Race 3 - It's a Piece of Cake 10k

After setting off from home in glorious sunshine, driving through a hailstorm on the M60 and arriving at a grey but dry Boggart Clough park, my expectations had been set for “variable” weather conditions. Arriving at the athletics track where the race started I was greeted by the sight of a 6ft glamour model, seemingly brought in by the race organisers, Manchester Frontrunners, to add a touch of unexpected glitz to the proceedings. Once parked up however, a closer look revealed that “she” was a “he” and more like 6’ 2” in heels – which made more sense once I realised that the day’s race organisers were a LBGT running club, and we were joined by fellow “Frontrunners” from London, Glasgow and Paris, bringing a surprisingly cosmopolitan atmosphere to North Manchester.

A quick jog round the track to warm up dispelled any lingering doubts about whether to ditch the base layer, as we were peppered with another shower of ice falling from the sky. And so, after our glamorous race MC had led us through some warm up aerobics, we were ready to go – in blazing sunshine again. The course was three laps of the park, involving a very quick downhill start section followed by a hairpin section enabling a good look at who was ahead of you on the way in and then who was following behind on the way out. After the hair pin came Angel Hill, a steep uphill section made even grimmer by the knowledge that it would need to be tackled 3 times, before a recovery swoop round the back of the park and back to the athletics track.

And so to the race. A lap of the track to begin with before heading out into the park, by which point the sunshine had vanished but fortunately it was still dry. The park itself, unlike its urban surroundings, was very pleasant with decent paths weaving through woods for the most part. At the first time through the hairpin, I saw Byron heading back out as I came in, but didn’t recognise anyone else, so thought I must be doing OK relative to the other NWFPAC runners (turns out Steven had already disappeared into the distance), and heading back out I spotted Jane, followed a little distance behind by David. My early assessment was that I probably wasn’t going to catch Byron unless he fell over, and I should be able to stay clear of Jane and David so I set my sights on reeling in a Lycra clad Parisian instead.

And so, apart from another refreshing hailstorm on lap 2, the rest of the race panned out pretty much the same, waving at Byron on the way into the hairpin and waving at Jane on the way out, Angel Hill an increasingly unwelcome distraction and me still chasing Sylvain – who I eventually caught on the final climb up the hill. Well done to Steven for leaving us all trailing in his wake as first NWFPAC member home and big congratulations to Jane who was first Lady home.

Results:

Ladies

1. Jane Thomas (Grant Thornton) – 1st lady – 42:23 – 20 points

2. Helen Charlesworth (BDO) – 5th lady – 47:13 – 18 points

3. Fran Whittle (KPMG) – 8th lady – 49:09 – 16 points

Men

1. Steven Henderson (EY Transaction Advisory Services) – 5th – 37:22 – 20 points

2. Byron Edwards (Lombard) – 7th – 38:37 – 18 points

3. Tim Shaw (Deloitte) – 11th – 39:27 – 16 points

4. Gareth Davies (Michael Page) – 21st – 41:18 – 14 points

5. David Simmons (Ascent CF) – 38th – 43:19 – 12 points

6. Jon Simpson (KPMG) – 57th – 45:47 – 10 points

7. Alan Budenberg (Barclays) – 94th – 48:41 – 9 points