Chester 10k, 9th March 2025
Cate Walker reports from back home:
“This was a beautiful race in and out of my home city of Chester on a day that felt like summer had come early, and brought all the smiles with it.
Unfortunately for me, it was also a slightly frustrating experience, the moral of which being don’t make last minute decisions about race plan, and always run in the wave you are registered in!
The race is part of the ‘Chester triple’, consisting of a 10k, Half and Marathon, spaced across the year, but can also be run as a stand-alone. Inspired by my friend Sarah doing the triple, I decided to join her on the 10k and revisit some old stomping grounds from our teens.
Signing up for a race is always a gamble with the weather, but I couldn’t have been predicting the 16 degrees we ran in for early March!
As we walked down to Chester racecourse, the sun seemed to have put everyone in a good mood and the city looked lovely framed by blue sky. Later on, as we ran a course that had a number of gentle but sustained inclines in direct sun, I did think I wouldn’t have wanted it any warmer, and did make use of midway water point.
The course meandered out of the city and (uphill) towards the village of Mollington, before looping back into the city centre and ending with a run around the cathedral and onto Eastgate Street, with the famous clock behind us. I would have enjoyed this scenic course much more if I hadn’t spent much of the race weaving around people who seemed to be approaching it in a much more leisurely way than me.
This minor frustration was entirely self-inflicted: by the time I had signed up to the race, only the third wave was open so I joined that. Although the slowest wave, I had reasoned in advance that if I started at the very front of the wave, I could still push for a 10k PB.
I should have stuck with that plan, but as Sarah was in the earlier wave and we were both ready to start at 9:30, I made the last minute decision to try and sneak into her wave and start off together.
This decision backfired on me in two ways, so I should have stuck to plan A and been my usual rule-abiding self! Firstly, being at the back of a wave, even an ostensibly faster one, wasn’t particularly conducive to my PB aspirations, and I eventually ended up registering a couple of hundred metres over 10k because of all my weaving.
Secondly, when I finally crossed the line (in just under 50 mins, not the sub-48 I had been hoping for), I was listed as not starting. It seems this run operates three separate clocks and chip systems, one for each wave. So, having not started in the system my chip was set up for, it didn’t register at all! For the second 10k in a row (the first being the Valentine’s 10k three weeks ago, where the chip system failed), I had to make do with my Strava time.
Minor frustrations aside, this was a really enjoyable experience, culminating in an iced coffee in the sun. We got a really nice run t-shirt and generous goodie bag too, so I can’t complain! Lessons learned (hopefully) for next time… “
