Accrington 10k - NWFPAC 2018 Championship race #3
It was an excellent third race of the NWFPAC Championship, which was technically the second race due to the heaviest snowfall seen in this country for many years.
As is customary with all running reports, there needs to be a summary of the weather on the day of the race. No snow was seen in Accrington. However, Accrington was not blessed with the hot weather as most of us expected from the day before. I set off in brilliant sunshine from home at 7.30am with sun cream in my bag only to be faced with heavy cloud and impending rainfall when arriving in Accrington.
In reality, the race began on Thursday afternoon with what now appears to be an early tactical manoeuvre from Dave Simmons. To everyone it looked like a helpful e-mail to suggest the easiest place to park in Accrington on the morning of the race. At the last minute, Dave informs everyone that the car park was in fact shut. Bad organisation from the race organisers, innocent mistake from Dave, or pre-race mind games? Who knows……
Despite the overcast conditions, the mood of the racers was pretty jovial and, as anticipated, the rain started to pour as the race commenced. The first couple kilometres of the race were fairly flat and then there was a steady ascent for what seemed like 6-7kms before a steep decent to the finish. It was slightly different course which made it difficult for a lot of the runners to assess their pace during the race.
Despite an inevitably reduced field of eight runners for this championship race due to the postponement in March and the London marathon, there was still some real talent on show.
David Chambers took the first championship spot with a time of 41:36 and an overall position of 18th out of 390 runners – it was a great run from David. John Williams followed 11 seconds afterwards with a time of 41.47 (20th overall) taking the second placed spot. Everybody else gave a solid performance. Third place went to Tim Hayle with a time of 42:36 – 28th overall. The first and only lady running was Jill Hickson with a time of 53:48 and a gender position finish of 32. The rest of the place/points were shared with myself (43:56), David Simmons (44:36), Alan Budenberg (48:52) and Adam Stirling (50:21).
