Tales from the Dark Side - Stockport 10

This is a road race so stop now if not interested.  My wife done this a couple of years ago and enjoyed it. Last year I entered to give here moral support for her second attempt. I would not have entered only there are two considerable hills in the race both in the second half at 6 miles and cruelty 8.5 miles to give a total assent of about 550 feet, which is a lot for a road race. Last year I done no training for the Stockport 10. Probably 3 years(ish) since I done that distance on the road and I done a five hour reccie for "The Trigger" the Thursday before. So I was pretty chuffed to come in 1:16 in position 268ish out of 780ish finishers. Twelve months later my wife wanted to do it again. I knew entries were open but I was not bothered about it so for a few days I did not mention it hoping it would fill up. Finally I decided I had better mention it is open so ended up paying 17 quid each to enter (ouch!). Soon after entering she got injured and just too busy with the new job so she cried off and deferred the entry until next year, which was nice by the organisers. So here I was doing it on my own. This year I actually done a hand full of 4 mile sprints around Marple thinking I should at least try for the Stockport race this year. But then on the Thursday before the long distance coordinator at Pennine scheduled her 3 hr training run for that night. I was not missing that! It turned out to be a horrible night with driving rain and sleet so it got cut back to 2 hours which suited me.

Up on Saturday morning and it was horrible oh well what do you expect in December. Got to Woodbank Stadium in Woodbank Park to retrieve my number.
It was a nice touch having my name on it, but caused some confusion during the race as a couple of time people called out "come-on Patrick" and I was looking at them trying to work out who they are as they must know me and I have no idea who they are!!.  The race number also had a little chip bonded to the back for the automated chip timing.

Puma Stockport 10 - Come-on Patrick!

The conditions actually improved by the time the race started we had one heavy shower within the first couple of miles but after that conditions just continued to improve. Actually turned out to be a perfect day for running. There were so many people who were over dressed for it with long running leggins and/or jackets. Some people are such whimps at the beginning of a race and do not appreciate how much they will warm up once it gets started. Early in the race I recognised a Glossopdale vest in front of me, I pulled along side and commented it was nice to see another Fell Runner to be informed that this was actually on the Glossopdale club championship and there are 14 of them out. We would have a riot in Pennine if they tried to put a road race in our championship.

The first down downhill,which was on  a rough track

The two big climbs are both in the second half. Despite this my split for the second 5 miles, the previous year, was a couple of seconds faster that the first five. At the start of the first climb I said to myself Pat you are a fell runner lets show them what you can do so I started to push up the hill overtaking quite a few people and just kept it up for the rest of the race. Done the same this year and near the top of the climb I caught site of my club-mate "Barnaby". Now there was a target. Every so slowly I was pulling him in. Until we got to the big decent at about 7 miles and he was just faster than me on the downhill. He ended up finishing 15 places (50 seconds) ahead of me. The real sting in this race is the 1  mile climb up New Zeeland Road at 8.5 miles. It suits me as everybody is knackered at that stage and I was able to gain a hand full of places.

Stockport 10 relief map

I dropped my phone in the first mile and it turned itself off when it hit the ground so I had no idea how I was going so on re-entering the park I was ecstatic to see the clock just turn 1:09 with a Km to go. I had a great opportunity to get below the 1:15 that I was hoping for so doing something resembling a sprint.

Competition!

I had just overtaken this bloke in the white tee shirt,  he was not having it we had 200 m to go on the track and he over took me again I had nothing left to hold him off.
 I got home in 1:13:21 to give me position 204. There were 749 starters so just outside the top quarter.
The overall winner came home in 49:55 and my category winner (MV 45) was 55:53, 9th overall!
I am amazed by how few finishers there were. The race was full at 1000 what happened to the other 251. I suppose there would be a few DNFs but the vast majority probably just did not turn up! Nearly quarter of the field that is appalling.

Within  a couple of minutes of finishing I received a text message congratulating me on finishing the Stockport 10 in a time of 1:09:21 eh? Apparently it was the same for most people having 4 minutes taken off their time.

Did I enjoy it? Yes. Would I do it again? I don't know!