Race report by Gareth:
A fantastic turnout of 15 Lostockers took part in the latest instalment of this year’s road/trail champs, the Bolton Wanderers Community 10K. This number is made even more impressive when you take the Paris marathon contingent into account along with the Rivington 10 miler plus plenty members who normally race on hols.
It’s tempting and too easy to be flippant about this race, basically you run up De Havilland Way, turn right on Chorley New Road for a bit, run round a cone then come back on yourselves but there’s more to this event than that. It really does have a community feel to it, with a wide range of abilities on show, really good crowd support, a very positive vibe and a great finish in front of the stadium. The out and back nature of the course really adds to the occasion and it’s always great to high 5 & shout encouragement to fellow Lostockers.
Our very own Melonie got us all going with her trademark warm up and we were underway at 9:30 with an uphill first mile up to the Beehive and right onto Chorley New Road. Now, I never think of CNR as hilly on an easy effort run but when your eyeballs out from the get go it becomes more challenging 🤪.
Paul Edwards led the Lostock pack from the start and stormed home in impressive fashion in just over 40 minutes. The race for team green runner up was an epic 3 way battle between Gaz, Dave Parry & Philip, I got a great view of these 3 duking it out with Phil powering on in the later stages and Dave just pipping Gaz at the end. All 3 came away with 10K pb’s, well done guys 👊👊.
Paul Lacey continues to get faster and fitter and ran consistent, strong splits with a quick finish to comfortably break 50 mins, closely followed by the super consistent & strong Tony Maxwell & Rachel Susan Hancock. Big shout outs to Jenna on her first road race in green & to Terri who just gets faster & faster and was another Lostocker to smash her 10K pb! 👊👊💚🖤.
Biggest smile of the day undoubtedly went to Chris Baker on his first run in a month due to injury, he was limping walking to the start which had me worried 🤪 but he came through it unscathed (mostly!) and was last seen heading to the post race massage area! Martin Smith continues to show the weekly track sessions agree with him with another really consistent race and Sheila Garewal fresh from globe trotting out in another strong performance in a fraction over 60 minutes & yet again Gillian continues to impress with another age category win! Massive well done Gill 👊👊 & it was great to see Stephen Davies digging in on his first 10K race for a while, well done.
It’s nice to be ushered into the stadium after crossing the line for medals, sweets, water & some nice pics, unfortunately it proved impossible to get a photo with everyone on! Well done to everyone who took part 😊.
Big thanks to the on course support from David Wilkes & Karen Taylor, much appreciated guys💚🖤.
For the record:
Paul Edwards: 40:42. 33/1041
Phil Holland: 43:21. 70/1041
Dave Parry: 43:51. 78/1041
Gareth Foulkes 43:54. 80/1041
Gareth Pratt. 46:35. 145/1041
Paul Lacey. 49:12. 226:1041
Tony Maxwell 50:33. 274/1041
Rach Hancock. 50:48. 283/1041 3/68 age category!!!
Jenna Wood 53:49. 343/1041
Terri Aldred. 54:55. 416/1041
Chris Baker. 54:44. 383/1041
Martin Smith. 56:05. 478/1041
Sheila Garewal. 60:06. 610/1041 5/21 age category!!
Gill Caldwell 63:39. 701/1041
Stephen Davies. 75:49. 911/1041
