NWFPAC ‘Michael Page’ Championship 2022 – Race 6: Wilmslow Summer 10k

The Wilmslow Summer 10k was the 6th race in the 2022 championship. We were treated to wall to wall blue skies and sunshine. And tropical temperatures.

Wilmslow town centre was teeming with runners, 2682 of them to be exact, so no wonder I didn’t spot anyone until a few minutes before the start of the race. It was good to see Charlotte and Claire’s friendly faces but also obviously disappointing that they’d turned up to take precious points away from me. Claire revealed she was hungover so I did briefly ponder whether she was beatable on a hot day whilst nursing a hangover…. absolutely not. So my goals were (1) to finish and at least grab some points for my team (2) to run it all (I may have walked up the odd steep section at Race the Train) and (3) to try and ruin Dave Simmons’ day by beating him on gender placing.

The route was relatively flat, on closed off roads around Wilmslow and past some pretty posh houses which provided some distraction initially. I set off too fast in all the excitement but started flagging after about 5k. It was hot. The 55 minute pacer slipped out of my view and I was just praying that the 1 hour pacer wouldn’t overtake me. The last 2-3k was on country lanes, just hot tarmac, no shade and a hill that I could have done without (but I ran it). There were two collapsed runners just before the 9km marker who needed medical attention and other runners were shouting for assistance from the marshalls. As I often take the unofficial role as NWFPAC backmarker, I checked it wasn’t anyone I recognised (especially Claire regretting those 3am shots of tequila) and then got my head down for the last kilometre running through leafy Cheshire countryside which felt hotter than the sixth circle of hell.

Congratulations to Max Bridge for being the 1st NWFPAC runner home with an impressive time of 34:39 (were you not hot?) and Charlie Batho hot on his heels in 36:54. A couple of close contests elsewhere with Adrian Rogers beating Sam Vincent by 15 seconds, and Dave Simmons beating Josh Nelson by 14 seconds. Well done to Charlotte and Claire, who came home as 58th and 98th woman respectively in a field of 1162 female runners which meant that they bagged 19 and 17 points for their respective teams. And congratulations to Lee Van Houplines on the PB! In terms of my goals, I wasn’t even close to getting Dave Simmons on gender placing (next time!) but in the words of Meat Loaf, two out of three ain’t bad.

Well done to all the runners for surviving the Wilmslow Scorchio 10k! My favourite part was relaxing at the café afterwards in the sunshine and with a hot coffee... 😊