NWFPAC ‘Michael Page’ Championship 2023 – Race 8: Alexandra Parkrun

The location for the final race of the 2023 NWFPAC season was Alexandra Park, a 60-acre park designed by Alexander Gordon Hennell and opened to the public in 1870. Just a short journey from Manchester City centre, it is a fantastic setting with a brilliant locally run café which is perfectly located at the parkrun start / finish area (a key consideration for any NWFPAC race).

There was clearly evidence of Storm Babet in the park, with paths lined with tree branches / leaves and even a fallen tree (this may or may not be a result of Babet, it was difficult to verify). Babet related or not, the tree had kindly fallen away from the course (or the Alexandra parkrun volunteers are extremely strong) and we were good to go. With Babet easing, in the Manchester area at least, conditions were close to perfect: dry, gentle breeze and a comfortable temperature. But this didn’t stop the usual start line chatter about injuries / a busy week at work / the dog eating my breakfast / shoe choice etc., just in case the race didn’t quite go to plan.

Dave had successfully talked up the potential for some big movements in the various championships and it was therefore all to play for, combine that with a larger than average field for Alexandra parkrun (local cancellations at Heaton and Fletcher Moss bringing in park-runners from across Manchester) and there was a real buzz on the start line. It was clear the NWFPAC competitors, and many other runners, were keen to take advantage of what is becoming known as one of fastest parkrun courses in Manchester (yes, the switch back is annoying, but the rest is flat and fast). This was clearly evidenced by the volume of carbon in the start area, making parkrun feel more like an F1 starting grid – I was even tempted to allow the Vaporfly’s* to make a rare parkrun appearance. Monaco or Alexandra park? Alexandra park every time for me.

Excuses in, strategic shuffling to be close to the start line complete, and we were ready to go. It was great to see long-serving NWFPAC member, Byron Edwards, shaking off some recent injury challenges to take a focused place on the front row – it looks like Byron is coming back into the kind of form that won him the Individual Championship in 2018, 2019 and 2020.

On to the racing and there were some good battles out there – Aisha finished 6th female, Byron / Dan / Stephen / Charles finished within 35 seconds of each other, Adrian /& Chris were separated by just 13 seconds and Charlie beat Dave in a photo finish. Had Dan’s time qualified for points it could have had a big impact on the overall season standings, but Dave’s strict “notify or don’t count for points rule” was enforced and Dan was unfortunately left with N/A next to his name.

Post-race, there was the usual debrief in the café and plenty of time to catch up with friends and fellow runners as we reflected on the 2023 season. Amongst the chatter, we noticed that Charles was a bit less chatty than usual for a few minutes as he frantically reviewed his spreadsheet to calculate his final position in the championship. I’m sure Charles will be happy to share his methodology, but I will say that it included traditional “RAG” colour coding, demonstrating that we are all as much finance professionals as we are runners. A+ for the commitment to the Championship, Charles.

Results are below and I will leave it to Dave to announce what a great morning of racing has done for the final standings. See you for the 2024 Season!

*Other Carbon racing shoes are available.