Race date – 3rd July 2022 – Sutton Macclesfield.
Report by Tony Bell
I was born in what was Lancashire but is now Cheshire, I usually say that I come from Cheshire but that isn’t totally true. Earlier this month I returned to Cheshire to do a Lancashire Walking Club race walk in the village of Sutton near Macclesfield. In days of old this was an important venue for race walking, twice a year the old fogies of Lancashire Walking Club return to Sutton to walk in the country.
8 walkers lined up, 6 of them started 4 minutes early and I started with our champion walker Adrian, who immediately zoomed away from me. We had a triple out and back course of slightly more than a mile to make 10km. I set off fairly hard but it was a lonely walk on lap 1, my sore ankle was bothering me but not enough to stop me walking. On lap 2 I was finally starting to get closer to the early starters, I passed two of them just before the end of lap 2 and three of them just after the start of lap 3. I had one more early starter to try and catch, I gradually got closer to him but ran out of road, he finished 24 seconds ahead of me (or 3 minutes 36 seconds behind).
Very tired on finishing, my sore ankle survived, not too bad a walk.
There were 8 walkers. The winner was Adrian Edwards (Lancashire Walking Club) 65.00. In 2nd place was Tony Bell (Lancashire Walking Club) in 67.39 (Solo Strider)
