Saturday 1st November 2025

After “thank you marshal” at Millhouses parkrun off I drove to Fulwood, then off over the Pennines with my friend and training partner Martin to Manchester for the Lancashire Walking Club AGM race. Every year, before we sort out our business for another year, we have a racewalk race down the hill from Simister into Heaton Park and back.

Conditions were cool, cloudy and windy. Unusually for Manchester it wasn’t raining, although it had rained very hard the night before. 1.3km pre-race to warm up, hard work into the wind.

13 walkers took part but none of the faster walkers were there. Took the lead from the start with Martin just behind, working fairly hard on way out although left knee was sore. After a mile I finally got clear of Martin in the lead, into Heaton Park looking out for the 2.5km turnaround marshal, who appeared earlier than expected?

The Manchester rain of the night before had flooded part of the road in the park which included our expected turnaround. I turned a bit earlier in 15.31, still in the lead as we headed out of the park. Picked up pace in last mile, tough going at the end. First over the line in 30.29, Martin about a minute behind in second, I did about 900m slow recovery as everyone else finished. Then back inside for a cup of tea and the AGM.

According to Strava (so it must be true) I racewalked 4.7km, a new 4.7km pb 🙂

Striders results: