Race Date: Sunday 28th December 2025

Incorporating the North of England 10k Championships and with generous prizes, this event attracted a quality field with sub 30 minutes for the men and sub 34 minutes for the women being the benchmark it you wanted a podium finish. Malcolm Baggaley described the course as “undulating but fast, and from about 3.5km, it’s predominantly downhill with just a couple of kick ups at 7km, and in the last 500m.” Here opinions differed with Emily Green’s legs disagreeing with this description of the terrain whilst Gareth Winter seconded this view finding the notion that the hill at 7k was just a kick up as quite “generous”.

With people squeezing into the front few rows in the last few minutes before the gun Malcolm found himself getting stuck too far back. With lots of weaving it was difficult to keep an even pace with significant seconds being lost. Even so, this was a better time than that posted at Doncaster four weeks ago and although he would have been happy with the time if given to him in advance Malcolm still had a lingering feeling that something had been left on the table with such a terrible start. With the last hill cresting with 250m to go, it was a long sprint finish, a lot longer than it looked, and this was the only time in the race that Malcolm was overtaken, again a function of starting too far back. (Editor: It took Malcolm over thirty seconds to cross the start line.)

Having just risen from her bed after a bout of Christmas Plague, Emily asked that her own time should be redacted from this report but, with solid runs from Abbie Haworth and Caroline Brock, she ran well enough to bring home Steel City as third team in the Northern Championships.