The 26th Wakefield Hospice 10K race was held on Sunday 19th March, and took a similar route to last years: starting from Clarence Park, it's a linear route straight out and back along Horbury Road, but with a little dog leg around 1km in and a revised route to the finish line once back at Clarence Park (see route map below).
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The Wakefield 10k Road Race is organised for and by Wakefield Hospice, with the aim to raise as much as possible for patients and their families living with an end of life diagnosis. Wakefield Hospice annually needs to raise in excess of £4 million. They would not be able to achieve this without the help of local people going out of their way to raise funds through taking part in events like the Wakefield 10k.
This years event will be the 26th annual Wakefield 10k and during that time runners have raised more than £0.5 million for those who need specialist care at a very difficult time in their lives.
Wakefield MAG have helped to marshal this popular event for more years than we care to remember, and our role is as mobile race marshals, looking after those competitors at the tail end of the race. The roads will only be closed for an hour and a half maximum, and although the bulk of runners will be finished whilst the road is still closed, a good number of runners (walkers !!!) will still be on the course, hence the requirement for mobile marshals (that's us !!) to ensure their safety, once the road is re-opened to traffic. We are generally the last 'officials' remaining on the course, and hence play a vital role.
This year, we had five marshals who assembled at Clarence Park in Wakefield at the ungodly hour of 08:00 (on a Sunday !!!) to support Wakefield Hospice with their 26th 10K run.
We left the start area at 08:50 to take up position on the course, leaving Steve behind so he could join the back of the race and be a very visible 'back marker'. The race started late at 09:10 but it wasn't long before the lead runners came storming past us.
The bulk of the runners then passed (including the odd fancy dressed runner), and then it was our cue to spring into action to marshal the tail enders.
The winner of the race (Mark Bostock of Wakefield District Harriers and Athletics Club) finished after a mere 31 minutes and 32 seconds. The first female to finish was in 7th place, Lucy Robinson, with a time of 34 minutes and 51 seconds.
After about 45 minutes traffic was being progressively allowed onto the road, so we took it in turns to ride the course, park up and observe and make sure the runners/walkers were safe. One or two issues with car drivers insisting on wanting to use Horbury Road when it was closed off, which is always slightly annoying (and the excuses are always lame in the extreme - 'I'm just going to the paper shop over there for my newspaper' .... er, walk you lazy ****). Also annoying were a number of MAMIL Cyclists (Middle Aged Men in Lycra) who patently didn't think the road closure applied to them and rode down the road amongst the runners ... just like last year funnily enough. Still, minor issues in the grand scheme of things.
Steve saw in the last two competitors, in 1,398th and 1,399th places, back safely, and it was Jane Holmes and Steve Holmes, with a time of 1 hour, 49 minutes, 49 seconds. And then it was all over for another year.
A huge thank you to Steve T, Steve H, Izzy, Johnno, Jay and Tez, our 2023 10K marshal team.