Earlier in the summer I made my post-lockdown race return by winning a Lancashire Walking Club 10000m track race in Bury. I won in the very slow time of 68.38, it was a very hot day.

I returned to Bury on a much cooler day for the annual 1 hour track race. Instead of everyone doing the same distance and fastest time wins everyone does the same time and furthest distance wins. 10 walkers started the race, none of the faster Lancashire walkers were competing but we had a visitor from Ilford in Essex, who I used to walk against in London back in the noughties.

Off we went, after a slow first lap our Ilford visitor took the lead and I followed him. However, after 2 more laps he got away, I was then clear in second place where I would stay for the rest of the race. The challenge in a race like this is to see how many walkers I could lap. I got lapped by the winner on lap 20 but I lapped 3rd place on lap 21. Last 2 laps were very hard work, the horn blew to end the race just after I started my 24th lap.

1st Steve Uttley (Ilford AC) 9766 metres

2nd Tony Bell (Lancashire Walking Club) 9250 metres

10 finished. Full results at https://lancswalkingclub.com/2021/09/06/steve-uttley-dominates-the-lambert-one-hour-race-at-bury/

If I had kept going to 25 laps I would have done just under 65 minutes, so a bit faster than last time. In 2009 I won this race with 10708 metres!

Photo shows start of race, I am number 4.