Race date Sunday 15 July, report by Andy Norton

The Waverley Dash is a race pretty much all off – road race even though when you look on power of 10 it says road rather than multi terrain.

Me and Emma tried to do this event 2 years ago but were late and couldn’t find the start, I don’t remember why we were late as we didn’t have kids at the time and at that moment in time we didn’t used to be late for anything.

The signage for the start and finish hasn’t got any better as in there is none and it’s a 10 minute walk to the start. So I would suggest if you are going to do it next year not to stress and just hang about the entering the race area until the marshals walk you to the start.

As it was a baking hot day I made the sensible option and did the 5k and left everyone else to burn in the sun doing the 10k whilst I was having a pint at the finish.

The race start is a bit hectic with the 5 and 10 starting very close together at the same time so if you are doing the 5 you spend the first 200 meters running through thick grass overtaking people however next year they are changing this apparently……

I had had a look at the results and seen that last year the 5 was won by mate Ben Mahoney from the dreaded Sheffield RC so when I saw him warming up for this years race I thought he isn’t going to let his title go easy and I didn’t really want a hard run in baking heat but that’s what I got.

Ben jumped straight onto my shoulder 400 meters in and stayed there right through the 1st mile which we hit in 5.20 over a rocky undulating type of terrain definitely not the sort of place to be doing fast 5ks.

The 2nd mile I pushed on hard and tried to get away running a 5.30 something which he couldn’t live with off a fast first mile and the damage was all done there he never came back at me even though the last mile is straight up a rocky hill and I felt like I was barely running up it.

My father and mother in law who were looking after my son got to the finish about 1 minute after I had finished as they couldn’t find the finish, so they never saw me finish which is ironic as they are always there without fail when I run a shocker.

I was a little disappointed to find out there is no prizes of any description for winners but the motivation of winning was good enough to give me some incentive to do some proper hard work training and try to run some fast times.

The route is a tough route and definitely not a place for pbs but for the price which is very cheap it cant be beat. A good place to get a real hard run.

Well done to fellow strider Adam Brooks who also won the 10k