Race Date: Thursday 4th December 2025

Sarah-Jane Brown reports:

The top six men and women from the The Fastest In The City series that happened back in April qualified to the Fastest in the Country edition, pitting Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, London and mighty Sheffield all together. However, as we walked over there, we thought that we might have the upper hand knowing that no one in their right mind would travel that far to come to The Olympic Legacy Park on a wet and windy Thursday night, surely not? Playing at home had specific advantage too as we train here with monotonous regularity all year round.

Caroline openly admits that she hates the OLP. (@jmruther4d)

There were separate heats for the men and women whilst The Undercard was for the sad folk like myself that took their chances on an all out 5k effort as opposed to the 5x1000m reps of the group’s track session that evening and proceed to pay almost triple the amount for the privilege of it (£14). The course was similar to our usual OLP 1000m loop, but backwards, throwing us off the scent a little bit with rogue curbs and diagonals across car parks. When ‘the lump’ in the middle is added it certainly wasn’t a PB course which is what we all say when we don’t PB isn’t it? It did measure a smidge long (3.3miles on the watch) but whether that was due to take every single corner far wider than necessary, or the course markings itself is still up for debate. (Editor: The five hairpins and other twists will have influenced the gps).

Caroline, Sarah-Jane and Annie in the wet.

After the race we were all pretty delightfully surprised knowing that there are half decent hot beverages at a little cafe right by the blue track lines on the circuit! Which between us we must’ve run around countless times over the years, but have we ever spotted it before? Don’t be silly. We can’t even look at our watches. So we bagged some wraps and rice bowls to take home for our lunch the next day and called it a night when we waited for the prize giving only to be told they will be sending out the prizes by post. Some miscellaneous ASICS stuff.

Annie Chambers also chips in adding that  “….  the 84 John St organisers and volunteers remained relentlessly enthusiastic despite the grim conditions and that the miscellaneous ASICS kit includes a pair of running shoes! Not a bad prize haul considering the race was free for the finalists. I would encourage anyone else with nothing better to do on a midweek evening to sign up for next year’s edition as it’s great to have local races like this in the calendar”.

The Fastest on the Night were Alfie Manthorpe (Hallam) 15:15 and Claire Fitzpatrick (Unattached but ex-Hallamshire) 17:19. There were twenty four competitors across all three heats.