Heaton Park Parkrun - 2017 Championship race #8

After a glorious Friday that was fresh and sunny, we awoke to a wet and miserable Saturday. This is my local parkrun (albeit I rarely make more than half a dozen runs a year due my dislike of the 5k sprint!) so I jogged the 1.4 miles there as warm up for the main event.

Meeting near the lions in front of the main house, we grabbed a quick photo with those of us who were there early enough before making our way to the start – which for those who are familiar with the Heaton Park Parkrun means that you want to be as near to the front as possible to avoid the bunching on the tight first corner. Thankfully the rain eased off and once the talking has quietened we were off!

As usual, I did my usual swift start, but soon after the corner I was passed by James, Phil, John and Alan in quick succession – Charlie and Michael didn’t pass me, but only because they’d starter faster than I had and beat me around that first corner!

My parkrun then settled into the familiar routine – after the fast start, the hang on for 4.5k! I vaguely kept John and Alan in sight, but there was no hope of catching them, so I just tried to keep going around the lake, up the hill and around the back of the house until the end.

I crossed the line on 21:26, lopping another 15 seconds off my run from 6 weeks ago, which was good enough for me – this time next year Rodney, I’ll be back to nearing 20! Well, we can all dream.

Post run, a few of us adjourned to the café for a coffee and a chat about possible races for next year – feel free to email me with any ideas! We were pretty sure that Kuits had claimed second place in the team competition, following good runs by James and Phil, but the big question was had John done enough to claim the individual prize……………

Our final results in a field of 579 were:

Position, name, firm, gender position, time

1. Michael Mannings, Crowe Clark Whitehill, 2, 16:23

2. James Wall, Kuits, 9, 18:16

3. Charlie Batho, Optionis Group, 16, 19:06

4= Maia Fradley, Lopian Gross Barnett, 24, 25:42 - New PB!

4= Phil Warburton, Kuits, 24, 19:38

6. John Williams, EY Transaction Advisory Services, 31, 20:09 - New PB!

7. Alan Reynolds, Crowe Clark Whitehill, 40, 20:20

8. Matt Smith, Deloitte, 46, 21:05

9. David Simmons, Ballard Evans Corporate Finance, 53, 21:26

10. Alan Budenberg, Barclays Wealth and Investment Management, 73, 22:45

11. Ben Bradley, Hurst Corporate Finance, 90, 23:15 - New PB!

12. David Avery, Lopian Gross Barnett, 95, 23:27

13. Nigel Barratt, Hurst Corporate Finance, 159, 25:28