"The Wizard 5"

Another great week of running, the weather was hot and the racing hard work!

After an easy couple of runs early in the week including getting completely lost on the Cheshire Plain with a five miler ending up twice as long on Monday lunchtime (see the fantastic church I found photo below), I turned up for the second running of the Wizard 5 on the Thursday evening absolutely raring to go.

Organised by Wilmslow Running Club this race takes you over, around, down and up Alderley Edge, made famous by Alan Garner in "The Weirdstone of Brasingamen", and on a warm and muggy night has all the ingredients for what you want from a short, local, friendly but competitive mid week race. Superbly organised and attracting some top class racers it has it all - a fast start, plenty of twisting woodland tracks (past the pictured 19th century Druids Circle), a descent off the edge round Cheshire's country lanes followed by the intimidating and punishing last mile climb back up to the finish at the Wizard restaurant on the Edge.


I started off really well but the descent and miles 3-4 really started to take their toll with the thoughts of the last mile being, "what goes down must have to go back up!". I really had to dig in hard to keep the climb going but finished mid field in a creditable 38.28, not bad considering the multi terrain nature of the course but a long way back off the winner coming in sub 30 minutes. This was one of those races that makes you realise why you enjoy running so much, or at least when the pain stops!

Next week its back on the hills again for the very short and even more painful Kerridge Climb!

Weekly Mileage 24. Annual mileage 728 (week 27)