Race Date: Sunday 3rd February 2019

Report by Arif Ali

This was the 5^th anniversary of this 10k race, and my second time attending. I think the key difference from last year was it was even colder this year. This was also my first race after injury, so wasn’t really expecting anything spectacular in my performance.

Remembering from last year, I decided set off earlier this year, so that I don’t get tied up with the slower runners in the later waves. Just to explain, due to the number of runners at this race, they are split into 10 waves, first one at 09:30 and the last one going at 10:42.

My race started really well, and on time at around 09:31, and not really looking at the watch for the first 3 miles, the pace seemed pretty comfortable. At mile 4, my watch showed an ETA of a 10K PB for me, but my overall fitness caught up with me and had to stop and slow down at mile 5 to help my legs calm down. Before I started the race, I would have been happy with a time around 50mins, so glad to have at least eclipsed that.

Would love to give this another bash, but its price at £35 – even with the early bird offer – doesn’t give me the justification to try it again, plus it’s not UKA affiliated, and therefore doesn’t get counted on Power of 10, (can you guess, I like my stats)

18516 completed the race. It was won by Chris Rainsford (unattached) in time of 31:23. First female was Charlene Jacobs-Conradie of Luton AC in a time of 35:48. 2 Striders took part. First Strider was Emma Nicholson in a time of 47:58. Congratulations to all.