Race Date: Friday 23rd May 2025

John Kilcoyne reports on his 2025 racing projects:

As well as hosting the monthly No Walk In The Park 5k at Queens Park in Chesterfield, North Derbyshire RC also hold The Run Forest Summer series of 4 races on a Friday evening on the same course from May to August.

With no Marathon to train for now until early 2026 the broad plan has been to have a crack at trying to get the 5k and 10k times down since the New Year up to the Autumn. A decent performance at Dewsbury in February has given some belief that maybe the PB’s of 2016 aren’t completely out of reach. Since then outings at three of the four South Yorkshire Road League five mile races also went fairly well although an 18:03 at the Loxley lash in May was disappointing

Held on the same night as last week’s Mid Cheshire 5k this was race one of the summer series which also incorporated the Derbyshire 5k Championships so hopefully there would be a reasonable field though nothing like the depth to be found over in Cheshire. The course itself is virtually four laps around the perimeter of the park, starting and finishing in front of the cricket pavilion. There is a small section of climb to contend with four times (40m over four laps) but some time is to be regained with a longer less steep section straight afterwards.

Getting into a small bunch of five for the first 3k helped to keep an even pace, pushing on without them as they slowed over the final 2k and finishing strongly to record a time of 17:24. This was a pb and, turning back the clock, also equalled an outing at the Rother Valley Parkrun from way back in 2016 so there seems to be some life in the old legs still.

Next up is race two of the Loxley Lash 5k race series this coming Wednesday although am not brimming with confidence as a course with mild undulations seems to suit rather than flatter tracks. The next NDRC Summer series is Friday 20th June at 7:30pm with the next No Walk In The Park on Saturday 7th June at 9am. It would be great to see some more Steel City at these events whether it’s chasing a PB or as a marker for an upcoming race.

First home was Mike Blair (Mansfield) running 16:27 with Emma Holt (Chesterfield Tri) first of the women posting 17:49. The last of the 57 finishers crossed the line in 28:41