Two walks in WarringtonSteel City Striders Running Club Sheffield

Race Report by Tony Bell

Cheshire Track & Field Grand Prix Match 3 – Victoria Park Warrington. Saturday 21st June

Victoria Park, in my home town of Warrington, is a place I knew well earlier in my athletic career. I would do running and racewalk training on the track on club nights. Victoria Park is also the venue for the Warrington parkrun. I was one of the original parkrun volunteers when it started in 2014, Shelley once held the course record for her age group. However, we moved away from Warrington in 2014, we come back to visit family and friends every now and then but it has been a while.

When a series of track racewalks in NW England was announced and it included a track racewalk in Victoria Park, it looked like a good reason to visit my home town again. Especially as my sister Marie was going to be visiting from New Zealand. Marie arrived on 20th June and I found out she was planning to do the Warrington parkrun, our brother Mark runs it every week.

So we got up early to get the train to Warrington in time to do the parkrun. We got to the park in time to meet my brother and sister. Who would have thought it, Mr and Mrs Bell’s three children all doing the parkrun. Marie has recently taken up parkrun in NZ, she has never broken 50 minutes so the plan was to walk round with her. Good to see some old Warrington running friends at the parkrun.

So Shelley and I strolled round with Marie, we had a parkwalk volunteer with us all the way, Mark ran normally and then jogged back with us to do the last km. A big personal worst parkrun time for me of 58.18, still they all count 🙂

After the parkrun over to the track, which was now blue and looked fairly worn. When I last used this track regularly it was red-brown.

I had an hour before my 1000m race, good to see some old racewalk friends, including Olympic racewalker Tom Bosworth. After Tom retired in 2022 he has been encouraging the next generation. As I warmed up for the race Tom was giving some tips to some younger racewalkers.

9 walkers lined up, there were racewalk judges there so it was being judged seriously. There was me, two 35 year-olds and the rest were youngsters. Off we went, didn’t try to go off too fast, I passed a fast starting youngster at 300m. Speeded up on last lap but didn’t quite catch 2 walkers just ahead. I was 6th out of 8 in 6:06.67, one youngster only did 600m. Tired on finishing, didn’t go off fast enough but not too bad a time, no problems from the judges. I don’t really train for such short distances these days, I was glad to support the event.