Race date: 26 January 2025

Race distance: 10km

Race report by Matt Broadhead

While lots of the Striders were at Meltham doing the (tough), a friend and I decided to try something new, and head over to Hazel Grove for the Stockport Daffodil 10k. Who doesn’t like daffodils? And there are nice places to eat lunch in Stockport and Marple. Unfortunately my friend was ill on the day, so lunch was off but I decided to run anyway.

I parked up at Hazel Grove station and set off on the 10-minute walk through a very well-kept housing estate to registration, which was on a farm. I clocked the interesting-looking farm butcher shop for later, got my number, dropped my bag and went and stood in the middle of the crowd to keep warm.

Soon enough we were off, heading down the fairly narrow Woodford Road towards wherever the rest of the race was taking us. I had clearly started too far down the field (how do you judge?) and although I was doing my best to bob and weave through the traffic, my watch told me I was making a poor job of it.

Then all of a sudden, we crossed a bridge, doubled back across another bridge, doubled back again and we had our own dual carriageway! There is something great about running on a really big closed road. I kicked on a bit and started reeling people in, which is the good part about starting too far back.

The dual carriageway section is a kind of stapled-staple shape and makes up half the race. It’s mildly undulating, but the whole race only has 75m of climb, so not massively. I spotted the other Strider, Karen Clark (who reported last year: https://www.steelcitystriders.co.uk/2024/the-stockport-daffodil-10k-race-report-and-result) at the first turn, and passed a squaddie in boots and a pack on the way back.

The last 2k were back along the way we’d come out, with a little mini-climb just before the end to make sure we were properly tired. The goodie bag contained shower gel, a good selection of sweets and a pair of Hilly socks.

While my splits weren’t great for the bit where I was in traffic, for the last 7k I held a steady 4:45-ish. Not as fast as I’d like but is probably as fast as I can expect at the moment.

I enjoyed this one. I’ve started to get back into road running a bit. Although it’s generally not very scenic, a mid-sized race like this has a smashing atmosphere, and once your running has got to the stage where you can do a 10k without worrying about having to walk, there’s something very liberating about just getting your head down and doing it, no distractions or peat bogs. This particular 10k is dead easy to get to and since the steak pie from the farm shop was excellent, I’ve already entered for 2026.

The race was won (by well over a minute) in 32:59 by Joe Monk of Preston Harriers, and in 38:47 by Laura Hesketh of Clayton-le-Moors Harriers.

Striders results