Lancashire Walking Club Albert Rigby 10km – Sutton Macclesfield.
Saturday 5th October 2024.
After volunteering at the 20th anniversary Millhouses parkrun off I drove over the hills to my home county of Cheshire for a 10km racewalk. After pulling my hamstring at the end of August I had had to be careful in training. I did race in September but I took it easy at the Lancashire Walking Club 1 hour track racewalk and ran the Sheffield 10km with my wife Shelley.
I was going to try and racewalk fast for this race. A triple out and back course in the village of Sutton near Macclesfield. I did 750m easy pre-race to warm up before 7 of us lined up. Conditions weren’t bad, cool, sunny and breezy.
Off we went and immediately I went into the lead with Nigel, a relatively new member of Lancashire Walking Club who won the track race last month. I was soon working hard to hang on, the pace settled down after 1/2 mile or so. I was able to stay in contact reasonably well on lap 1 (21.44). Harder work on lap 2, especially going uphill on the return leg but I managed to stay in contact, lap 2 in 22.33. The plan was to hang on to Nigel for the first 2 laps and then try and speed up on lap 3. Unfortunately Nigel had the same idea and gradually pulled away at the start of lap 3. I wasn’t too far behind at the mid-lap turn but then Nigel zoomed away and I started to slow. The lack of distance training in recent weeks started to show and it was a real struggle uphill on the way back, fortunately I was well clear of third. Finally over the line in 67.52, 23.35 for last lap. Nigel won in exactly 65 minutes!
Congratulations to Nigel, then I did 500m slow recovery walk.
Striders result
2nd Tony Bell [M60] 67:52(21:43,44:16)
Full results and report from Lancashire Walking Club
