Race date: Wednesday, 3^rd July 2019

The Chase the Sun series of events challenge runners to get round the course before the sun sets. Each event incorporate a 5km and 10km within the same race. Each runner can then decide which distance to complete during the actual race itself; chip timing does the rest.

Having entered the Chase the Sun Olympic Park10km race – at short notice – on my last visit to London back in early May, I again found myself in London on a Wednesday evening. So I sought out a local race and entered the Chase the Sun Victoria Park 10km.

This time the weather gave the runners every chance of doing the race title justice. It was a gloriously hot evening; wall to wall blue sky and 24 degrees at the start of the race. The route, 3 times around the paths of Victoria Park, was thankfully almost all under the cool shade of some large London plane trees. Interestingly many more did the 5km rather than the 10km this time around, probably due to the temperatures.

Once again it was very well organised by the RunThrough company – with flapjacks, bananas, nuts, water (and the obligatory medal) for all finishers. The three water stations out on the route were most welcome to refresh the dry throat and to cool the head.

I was 82^nd position and 1st in v60 age category in the 10km, an improvement of 45 seconds from the race in May! The race winner was Christian Preece in 34.07. The women’s race winner was Kelly Clark in 40.25.

Striders result: