Race Date: Sunday 13^th August 2023

What makes a great race? A hill with no matching downhill, deadly road camber and some horrible woodchippings at 13 miles plus a downpour at the end for those waiting for the presentations and their cash prizes. Some great results for 37 Striders in this event which was part of the 2023 Road Race Championships.

We witnessed podium finishes in their age categories for Caroline Brock (always happy) and Sarah Allcard (but still dissatisfied) and third in the Notts County Championships for Simone Young-Alls after she had ticked the wrong box on the entry form. (All legitimate however and has the birth certificate to prove it whilst SYCAAA, unlike most counties, doesn’t have any road championships). Disgraceful seven minute pb for Yasmine Chaffer (happy but on her way to A&E after scalding her arm on the kettle that morning). We had Naeem Stevens unhappy with his pb of 1:16:05 after blowing up mid race whilst Hannah Wright was happy simply not to be on the last page of the results.

We had a tactical battle between Andy Hinchliffe and his closest rival in the road championships. After being tracked for most of the race Andy was passed at around ten miles but his opponent failed to maintain the small gap that he had opened up. In his own words the strategy then was “well if Andy was going to beat me I should at least show him the respect of making him hurt as much as possible” as their last mile was their fastest before Andy put him to the sword with 160m to go. Due to the vagaries of the start, chip times were identical so honours even on this one although Andy was the happier with a decent pb along the way.