Well today came my first official race of 2015, The Alsager 5 mile race which is very popular and always full, one of the reasons for its popularity is that it’s a virtually flat course so the potential to obtain a PB is very high. Having not raced this before I was unsure of what to expect from it other than the fact I knew I would have to push myself for the entire race, not something I was looking forward to.

On arrival the parking facilities were easy to find with plenty of marshals pointing us in the right direction, for this race numbers were posted out to us but the chip timers were to be collected from race HQ… not sure why they wasted money on posting the bib numbers out!?! The HQ was located in the main hall next to the Leisure centre where everything again was well organised, chip and T-Shirt collected (this is the only time I’ve known to collect the T-shirt prior to the race) it was nice to see that we were getting a technical running shirt instead of some cheap cotton one. No medal or goodie bag for this race though!

Just another little note on the chip timers, these came on a strap that needed to be fixed around your ankle, I know more than one person put these around their wrist and the chip was to far away from the mats and so was not activated so no time was recorded.

Stoke F.I.T. had a fantastic turn out as usual with 47 affiliated runners showing in the final standings, we did have lots more members running but as they are not affiliated they didn’t show in the results as being part of Stoke F.I.T. otherwise we would have been the 2nd most affiliated club at the race, South Cheshire Harriers were the most represented with 67 runners although we did show them and everyone else up with our friendship philosophy, our team work bringing our runners home is second to none.

As for the race itself it was as fast paced as I expected, everyone was going for it from the sound of the starting horn with no time to get into a comfortable pace it was just a matter of going for it and see what happens. It didn’t take long to see why it is such a popular race, it was as flat and fast as previously described, no two ways about it, today was going to be a 5 mile PB for lots of runners.

Personally I don’t like setting myself a target time for any race but was asked a few times before today’s Alsager 5 what I was aiming for, I thought about this and just said anywhere between 35 & 40 minutes would do me. I ended up finishing with a chip time of 36:09 which I was extremely pleased with and now gives me a target to beat next year!

Our top male finisher was Paul Shenton with a brilliant time of 32:52 Lesley Wall came home first for the Stoke F.I.T. ladies with a fantastic time of 38:48 I will add all of the affiliated Stoke F.I.T. results further below (if you would like to be on the next list why not become affiliated? it helps the club and only costs £10 for the year, as an affiliated member you will get a £2 discount off any future races that you enter).

Stoke F.I.T were having a great day with fantastic times coming from everyone, we all gave everything we had and that showed in the race results, simply fantastic! So many stories of what we all had achieved it made me feel so proud to be part of something so great as Stoke F.I.T.

Post race was as usual Stoke F.I.T. at it’s finest, as each of our runners finished (and after removing the chip tags) we had a few moments to recover before we were all running back out to meet our other runners who were yet to finish, wave after wave we bought them home, this is always great to see and always gets tremendous response from other runners and spectators alike, no other club does this and this is what makes our club so special, fantastic work all round guys!

Thanks to everyone that came along to support us and take photo’s which we are all looking forward to seeing!

Official (chip) race times below.

Paul Shenton 32:52
Jonny Bibb 32:57
Martin Kaine 33:43
Carl Callear 34:32
Gavin Dockerty 35:24
Peter Holdcroft 35:51
Stephen Minshull 35:51
Will Hughes 35:57
David Bourne 36:01
Paul Glover 36:09
James Simpson 36:21
Mark Shaw 36:34
Ray Wilson 36:48
Colin Bancroft 37:17
Michael Beasley 37:49
Paul Shelley 38:12
John Beats 38:16
David Cooper 38:32
Dan Harmer 38:36
Lesley Wall 38:48
Ian Tamburello 38:51
Stephen Willett 39:48
Peter Crosbie 39:51
Robert Kewish 42:19
Michael Connolly 43:04
Louise Sheilds 44:02
Andy Miszkiel 44:24
Ken Wilson 45:55
Stephen Woodward 45:57
Lisa Weston 47:09
David Venn 47:20
Sharon Whitfield 48:01
Steve Banks 48:43
Annabelle Wright 49:14
Debbie Salmon 49:23
Georgina Booth 49:37
Claire Shaw 49:43
Jacqueline Morrey 49:55
Claire Connolly 51:17
Tracy Walker 52:01
Katie Chadwick 53:09
Emma Lea 53:59
Lynette Heaps 55:12
Danielle Pullen 1:00:31
Tracy Shenton 1:00:32
Alison Harley 1:03:27
Claire Chadwick-Crosbie 1:03:35