Woodbank Parkrun - 2018 Championship Race #1

It was a great turnout for the first race of the year in the NWFPAC Championship with over 20 members turning up on a cold, wet and fairly miserable morning in the not so sunny Stockport! A fine course however in the grounds of Woodbank & Vernon Park which was by far “easy” with the two short steep climbs on a figure of eight two lap course.

The typical pre-race excuses were evident amongst a few members (including myself!) who had either had too many glasses of red, beers or shots (5 was it Jill H?) the night before and people carrying niggling injuries / too much weight / not at full fitness, but the question was were the more “elite” members of the group going to dominate the top 10 like Stamford Park parkrun last year… and they certainly didn’t disappoint!

Byron Edwards was 1st overall with a time of 18:41 – knocking almost 1 minute off his previous run at Woodbank 5 years ago… fantastic run Byron, well done! Tim Shaw put in a solid effort to take the 3rd place spot - 48 seconds off Byron with 19:29, good job you managed to sort out the barcode issues with the race director pre-race Tim!

The first lady back was NWFPAC member Jill Parker (7th overall) with a time of 20:23 – well done Jill! Hot on the heels of Jill was Gareth Hurfurt (9th - 20:29) and Charlie Batho (10th - 20:40) again fantastic times chaps and well done on making the top 10.

There was an extremely close sprint finish from team members John Williams (12th - 20:46) and Rob Jones (13th - 20:47) well done John on taking it by 1 second!

Alan Reynolds (17th – 21:31) came out on top of a 3 way fight with Phil Warburton (18th) and Gareth Davies (19th) with just 6 seconds between them all.

David Chambers (21st) set a great marker for his first ever parkrun with a time of 21:52.

Chris Kinsey (Hurst Harriers B Team) put in a fine effort to finish 23rd in 22:04 which could see instant promotion to the A team – during the race I understand that he said to Dave that he wasn’t great on the flat shortly before leaving him in the distance however another fine run by Dave who finished 28th just 23 seconds behind Tim Hayle (25th) who finished in 22:13.

Rob Dawes has been putting the miles in training for the London Marathon later this year but upped the pace today with a parkrun PB of 23:12 – great effort Rob, I need to up my game…!

More first time parkrun experiences for both Adrian Rogers and Sean Thompson with great markers of 23:52 and 24:50 – Sean casually chatting to me at the bottom of the hill whilst I was trying to save as much oxygen as I could for that steep climb! Just one second behind Adrian was Charlotte Haworth finishing 4th lady overall with 23:53.

I had Adam Stirling in my sight for the full race, having finished a good 25 seconds ahead of Adam last week at Bolton parkrun, I was kind enough to give him this one in the end as he out sprinted me to the finish line gaining 5 seconds in the final stretch. Just 10 seconds behind me was fellow Hurst Harrier Kate Oliver (who along with Chris should be in the A team, maybe a team name reshuffle is required after race 1!) finishing 5th lady overall.

Jill Hickson ran a PB time at Woodbank – even after the late Friday night and shots! Finishing 18th lady overall.

Some fantastic times today by everyone and great to see that half of the top 20 was made up from NWFPAC members – taking over parkrun once again!

Editor - Well done all and we even managed to grab a post-race photo that had most of us in it – apologies to those who missed out, one time we’ll be ultra-organised and manage to do it when everyone is around!