Race Date: Wednesday 1st April 2026

The SYCAA 5 mile series is a regular fixture of the spring local racing circuit. To me it has always felt quite like cross country with the intra-club competition, rural and hilly courses and hard racing from the off. The opener this year was held in Elsecar at the heritage centre where some unfortunate roadworks on course caused some last minute headaches for the organisers. Fortunately a solution was found which basically resulted in a slightly short course, but a good one that was still fun to race.

I and several others were coming at this race off the Sheffield Half, with others having raced at the Northern Road Relays as well the weekend before, so it was always going to be a good test of recovery for some of us!

We lined up on the road just before the aforementioned roadworks and then were set off after a quick briefing. The start was pretty hectic with some people a little out of place on pacing, including myself. The course started pretty flat where we all sorted ourselves out before tilting upwards and starting the main climb and from there it was up, up, up consistently all the way through Wentworth village and halfway through the race. These courses always just seem to go up a little bit longer than expected or ideal for me as at this point I was really feeling the half in the legs. However we soon started descending immediately after halfway before making the turn onto the TPT next to the canal and the final little section around the heritage village.

The course came out at 4.3 miles for me on the Garmin, but the reduced distance due to the roadworks was actually a welcome surprise after the half at the weekend! The organisers did very well to get the race on and us all around safely with the disruption of the roadworks.

The race was won overall by Euan Brown from Percy Pud winner Mark Jones. First female was Ruby Sunman of Barnsley AC. Naeem Stevens was the first strider in 25th, while Naomi Tuckett was first female strider as 2nd female and first F35. Naomi was our only category winner on the night but there were many high placings in categories which will all count towards the overall standings. In terms of Teams Striders women were in 2nd behind winners Totley AC, while the men were 7th (6th Div 1) with Hillsborough and Rivelin taking the first fixture as a team.

Striders results;