Read Terri’s report of the Mid Cheshire report and how another club record was beaten.
Yesterday Andy and I headed off to the Mid Cheshire 5k. I’d originally entered it as it starts and finishes near where my daughter lives. I hadn’t realised it was one of the most sought after 5k races of the year for fast runners as well as being the England vs Wales Masters And I mean really fast runners ! We arrived about an hour early which was just as well as the queue to the car park down the narrow lanes of Kingsley a tiny village in chshire was slow going. The organisation however was amazing and we had our race numbers in a matter of minutes. The highlight for me was the look of disbelief on Mr D’s face when I informed him that he was in the second to last starting pen even with putting a sub 19 minute predicted finish time. I was extremely worried when I heard fellow runners in my own pen which was the last pen saying they were aiming for around 20 minutes. We set off and it felt like an eternity before we actually reached the start but when we did the hoardes of runners soon spread out across the closed roads and we both had a great race. We’d met former club member Dylan Naylor before the start who was aiming for sub 14.45 but gave us some fantastic advise to set off like the clappers and not waste the downhill start. We both heeded his advise and Andy achieved a QRC club record for M55 in a time of 18.31 which he was delighted with but placed him 563rd which just shows how high the calibre of the race was. I was pleased with my own race and ran 22.23 which placed me 853rd !We will definitely return as it was a great well organised race with local homeowners lining the lanes to cheer us on and due to the rolling nature of the course means it’s a great PB course. The winner won in a time of 13.58 with the next 6 runners all finishing within 14.08…. unbelievable !