On Sunday, six members of Newport & District Running Club made the short trip to Stafford to take on the town’s annual 10k road race. Run annually since 2016 (bar a two-year pause for the Covid-19 pandemic), the race was celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, and with it introduced a new course.
This year, runners took in a loop to the west of town centre, taking in Castlefields, Highfields and the Wolverhampton Road, before completing a loop of the town centre to finish the race, which had its start and finish lines just behind Victoria Park, with Race HQ in the park itself. The new course presented a fresh challenge to runners, with around 80 metres of elevation gain, around double that of the old course.
There were 2,396 finishers this year, and Alex Cochrane led the way for NDRC, finishing 143rd overall in a time of 41 minutes, 33 seconds. Harry Stokes was in hot pursuit, taking part on his 16th birthday, and taking 156th position with his time of 41:58. Neil Fairbrother was next, finishing 415th with a time of 47:18, just ahead of David Evans, who clocked a time of 48:10 in 462nd place. Stephen Mansbridge finished 1,797th with his time of 1:07:41, whilst Donna Hesbrook-Edwards ran a time of 1:14:24 to finish 2,030th.
