NWFPAC ‘Michael Page’ Championship 2026 – Race 7: Lyme Park Parkrun

Lyme Parkrun was the seventh race in the Championship thanks to the Bollington 3 Peaks being called off.  Whilst the distance was shorter than originally planned, the hills and trails were a heavy feature.

The weather made for a good morning, it stayed dry throughout and the trails were still dry despite the rain we'd had recently.  We were able to enjoy our post-run drinks in the dry, with the rain coming in full force just in time for the drive home.  At drinks there was chat of "that" Hyrox incident — glad to see there were no repeats of it today, and thankfully in this environment any mishap could always be blamed on the mud…

There were a few happy faces around the group this morning, with the realisation that a few of our speedy runners hadn't made an appearance, meaning we were all in with a good chance today.

Lyme being my local parkrun meant I knew the course well.  It's usually my parkrun of choice for a slower run to take in the scenery, so the dread of having to run it quickly was real.

We met at the bottom of the first hill — the sudden elevation and rocky terrain of this hill regularly make me question my fitness when I'm struggling in the first km, but I've learnt from previous mistakes to take the first hill steady and save the energy for the rest of the course.

As the descent started, I had Dave in my sights and overtook him. He willingly told me to go, probably knowing he'd get me back on the uphills…

We then approached the Cage, a key attraction of Lyme Park, with a great view of Manchester city centre in the distance (albeit with a huge rain cloud lingering over it).

The run down from the Cage was the usual staring-at-the-floor-trying-not-to-fall-over routine, but having done this course a lot in winter, today was a good day for it by comparison.  We then reached the final dreaded point — Tumble Turn (thankfully without many tumbles, given the conditions) — which leads into the longest, steadiest uphill stretch, one that never quite feels like it will end.

I plodded up the hill, but of course, along comes Dave, overtaking me and looking rather smug about it.  I then remembered that placing is by gender, so Dave being a few places ahead of me was likely to make absolutely no difference to my score — so I happily plodded on, just focused on getting to the end.  Unfortunately, in the final 100m, what I didn't realise was that there was a young girl behind me who turned out to be a far better sprinter than me, and she pipped me a few metres from the finish line.  The joy of parkrun is you can check their age in the results afterwards, so I was delighted to discover I'd been overtaken by someone only just old enough to run without being within arm's reach of a responsible adult…

To the results: Daria took the crown with 5th female, closely followed by Dan in 7th, who ran a Lyme PB — well done Daria and Dan! We then had David C, Adrian and I all in close proximity, with David taking 13th and myself and Adrian joint 14th.  It appears being overtaken by the JW11-14 did matter for the points after all.  Huge shout out to Claire, who decided Lyme was a great run to do with a pram?!  I imagine it must have been quite the ride for the child on that rocky terrain.

Well done to everyone who took part and hope to see you at the last race in the calendar next month!