Race date: 11 June 2022 ; race distance: 10,000m

Race report by Tony Bell

Before last Saturday I hadn’t raced since the Sheffield half marathon in March. Any racing plans in May were scuppered when I came down with COVID. As I recovered I started to build up my training again I then hurt my back. In the previous week both of my calves were feeling sore.

Saturday 11th June I volunteered at the Millhouses parkrun, then my wife dropped me off at Dore Station for a train to Manchester and tram to Bury for the Lancashire Walking Club “Dick and Zena Smith” 10,000m track race. Thanks to delays to public transport I arrived at Bury tram stop 10 minutes before start time. My warmup was a brisk racewalk of 0.3 miles to the track. I just had time to get a number before we lined up to race.

Only six walkers lined up, not including any of the fast walkers so it looked like an easy win for me. However, with my suboptimal warmup and all my recent illness and injury problems I was a bit wary of going too fast. At least as it was a track race I could drop out with no problems if things got too tough.

Off we went as it started to rain, all six of us walked together for the first half. Part of me wanted to stop and another part of me wanted to speed up. 5000m in 35.57, very slow pace.

I decided that was enough so at 5100m I speeded up and immediately pulled away from the others. I decided I would like to break 70 minutes. I was working hard and my legs were complaining but I kept going, very hard work into wind on the home straight. At 8000m I lapped 6th and 5th places, in the last km I speeded up to lap 4th and 3rd, very tired on last lap but over the line in 68.28. I was 10 seconds faster than the corresponding race last year 🙂 However, there was a time I could comfortably racewalk 10km in less than an hour.

Pleased to win and get round in one piece, hopefully I will be feeling better for the next race.

Organisers’ report and full result: https://lancswalkingclub.com/2022/06/13/dick-and-zena-smith-trophy-results/