Chester Spring 5

The Chester Spring 5 was traditionally the first race of the Summer Series. In recent years it has fallen out of favour, mainly, I think, because of the difficulty of getting through the rush-hour traffic, but it remains a good race. Fortunately this year it was in the school holidays and the M56 flowed, well it did as far as Frodsham, then we ground to a halt. I escaped the motorway at Helsby, grateful for having set-off early.

The wind dropped to 15 kph and the sky cleared, a sunny 14^o.

‘I can’t understand you running’, said Penny on Tuesday ‘you never run well unless you’re competing with other Wilmslow runners’ and, as always, she’s right. My defence was that in the previous six months I’d raced only three Halves plus Langley, had done Wilmslow short on mileage and was even shorter on pace (only seven Tuesday speed sessions this year), that I liked 5 mile races but that they were in short supply with everyone going metric. I’d done sub-34 twice since turning 60, albeit at Alsager, which I’d missed this year, I’ve never done as well at Chester but sub-36 looked feasible.

I didn’t expect many other Wilmslow runners with South Cheshire on Sunday, but I didn’t expect none. I did 6:50 pace for the first half, not quite, I feared, fast enough, its downhill and you payback in the second half. So it proved, 36:13. Still put that together with the first 6 miles at Wilmslow and I’ve got a marker for Sunday.

Ian Ashcroft