The 27th Wakefield Hospice 10K race was held on Sunday 24th 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).
.
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.
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, both during the bulk of the run but also importantly looking after those competitors at the tail end of the race. This year we were strategically located at several junctions where cars trying to enter the closed road caused problems last year. We also, as usual, provided a bike covering the last competitor in the race. If any emergency vehicles needed to use the closed route, our role as mobile race marshals would be to get the competitors onto the pavement to allow emergency vehicle(s) to pass.
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 27th 10K run.
We left the start area at 08:40 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 09:05 but it wasn't long before the lead runners came storming past us.
The winner of the race (Mark Bostock of Leeds City AC) finished after a mere 31 minutes and 45 seconds (he was the winner of last years event too). The first female to finish was in 10th place, Lucy Robinson of Wakefield District H & AC, with a time of 34 minutes and 18 seconds (and she also was first female in last years race). These two have obviously got this event sawn up between them.
Steve saw in the last two competitors, in 1,832nd and 1,833rd places, back safely, and it was Megan Withnell and Vicky Bell, with a time of 1 hour, 59 minutes, 11 seconds and 1 hour, 59 minutes 49 seconds respectively. Fair play to the last competitor, she walked the entire route but never gave up or stopped for a rest and a 10k / 6.2 miles walk isn't an insignificant distance.
And then it was all over for another year.
The event ran very smoothly and the only real issues were one car driver who managed to sneak onto the course (an ambulance blocked their passage and they turned around and headed away from the runners) and 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.
A huge thank you to Steve Travis, Mark Rhodes, Pete Huby (with pillion Izzy Huby), Martin Burgess and Jay West, our 2024 10K marshal team.
Loads of photos of the event are on the Wakefield Hospice Facebook page: www.facebook.com/WakefieldHospice