NWFPAC ‘Michael Page’ Championship 2024 – Race 3: Lyme Park Parkrun

It was a glorious but fresh morning in sunny Lyme Park for the 3rd race of the 2024 NWFPAC championship.  A herd of red deer were assembled at the start line when I arrived 20 minutes early as usual (well, okay, two people who know me well did check if I knew that the start time was 9am!).  The usual excuses were passed around: old age, wrong shoes, something about legs being tired from a marathon – that old chestnut.

With 20 minutes to fill before the start time, I treated myself to a warm up jog.  Unfortunately I had an altercation with a Canadian goose; it was unnecessarily aggressive, and as Mike Ginn will no doubt testify, I was incredibly brave and handled the situation well.

After we set off for the first 800m climb on uneven/rocky terrain, which always makes me question my life choices, I saw Dave Simmons up ahead executing his famous sprint out of the blocks, and thereafter saw no other NWFPAC runners until the finish line / over a coffee.  So, once again, no exciting race report from the NWFPAC back marker.  Surely Dave will stop asking me to write them sometime soon…

There were some fantastic results by the elite runners.  Aisha shows no sign of tiring after doing both the Boston marathon and London marathon in recent weeks (and having cycled from home to Lyme Park just for fun), claiming 3rd female and taking 20 points for her team.  Well done Aisha!

Mike Ginn came 4th overall (despite his unsuitable footwear) in a superb 19:48. And the men’s gender competition saw NWFPAC runners taking 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9thpositions!  Great efforts everyone.  That probably explains why my other half overheard the marshals at the finish line discussing that the runners must have found a short cut on the course today!!  Little did they know that the NWFPAC were in town.  Congratulations also to Tom Grime, Dan Harrison-Croft and David Chambers for getting PBs at Lyme Park.

Despite the fantastic placings, as a collective we seemed to be slower than when we visited Lyme Park for the 2022 championship.  Possible explanations for the deterioration in form was a hotly debated topic, with some of my favourite theories being (1) it was windier this time (2) it is much steeper today and (3) there more rocks on the course.

See you in a few weeks!