Yes, Josie Cram and her team hosted the fantastic inaugral Worcester City 10k and Run Bike Run on Sunday 21st September.
I heard a lot of locals expressing their thoughts on this event early on saying that they wouldn't enter as the entry fee was too expensive to run/ride streets that they can use anytime they like for free. Well, as time went on I think some of these people soon realised that if they didn't enter they would be missing out on something special. The hype grew once Paula Radcliffe announced that she would be racing the 10k, her first race for 2 years. Now this was something special, us locals had the chance to line up next to the worlds fastest female marathon runner and run around our local streets traffic free. The entries came flooding in.
I had entered the run bike run. It was timed perfectly for a practice session for a later planned race I was targeting with my training. However, my fall earlier in the season delayed training and we decided that I was to only run the 10k at the Worcester City event. This gave my colleagues, Kirk and Andy, from Runaround Sports (one of the event partners) the opportunity to enter the event with me as a relay. Great. Kirk hadn't raced for 2 years due to injury from being knocked off his bike. Andy had been running 100 mile events for 2 years ! I hadn't raced a stand alone 10k for 2 years. So, we were excited. And competitive. To say the least!
Race day, perfect weather. Plenty of parking and room at the Racecourse. Bodies everywhere, novices to GBR athletes. Not to mention Paula and a couple of runners who had travelled from Kenya.
I started the 10k strong and stayed strong. I paced it well, ran my own race, heard my name called from the thousands of people spectating. Worcester Bridge was incredible. We ran over it 3 times, the noise and cheers from the crowds were fantastic. So motivating. What a great route. Fab to run past the shop and see Oli supporting and blasting out the run faster tunes for us! Love the helium balloons :-) Running along the river was beautiful, rowers had stopped to watch. It seemed the whole city was behind this. The local running group, Black Pear Joggers, were out in force running and marshaling. They did a great job.
I sprinted to transition to hand over to Kirk who was well prepared for racing the 35k bike route...Whilst he was out there I took a little time out to have a coffee in the VIP hospitality! Perks of working for one of the event partners :-) Whilst up there I had a great view of prize giving for the 10k. Wonderful to see local girl Jenny Nesbitt win the race, she must've been over the moon. (Nineteen years old, first 10k race, beats Paula Radcliffe! Good luck to Jenny for her future running career.)I then gave a little interview to Hospital radio! and had a muffin. Whilst Kirk was out bombing around the countryside, and I had been swanning around, Andy was taking a 1 hour warm up...and psyching out the opposition ;-) Kirk came in, he had given it the beans and came home with no beans left to give. Fantastic.
He handed over to Andy, who shot off like a hare. Boy that man can run!
We finished in 3rd place (relay). We were chuffed to bits. Our splits...41.53, 1.09.02, 17.49. Think we were all happy with those. We didn't let each other down! Technical T shirts and medals all round, Podium pics with Paula and £150 prize money to share ! What a fantastic day. What a fantastic result.
I had a little word with Isla, and told her we share a birthday! Along with Mohamad Ali! Yes, I'm easily pleased :-)
Events of the North have put Worcester on the map, and we salute them for it.
Thank you Josie, Rebecca and Marcus. And all your team. Thanks to Worcester City for getting behind the event.
Do not miss this one next year.
Your words capture the emotion of this day/event perfectly Vikki. Reading this brings back the memories from an amazing day :)
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