It was a somewhat grey and miserable Mother’s Day that greeted around 1,500 runners who gathered in the Market Square in Nottingham to take part in the Run for All Nottingham 10k.The event returned with a new city centre route which started in the Old Market Square and wound its way round the city before passing by the Motorpoint Arena and the Park Estate before finishing inside Nottingham Castle’s ancient walls.
Julia Hallam and Sylv Hull from Grantham Running Club joined in the fun which was started at 9am by the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Once runners left the square, the route seemed to climb endlessly uphill with the odd bit of downhill relief to try and claw back some recovery and pace.
Julia had entered after a break from racing to give herself a benchmark for the year and to give herself a training goal. She was very thankful that she had been working hard on her hill training at Belvoir parkrun over the last few weeks as the course was absolutely brutal, with the endless climbs and uphill finish which made sprinting over the line almost impossible. Her main ambition for the event was to beat the 1hr10 pacer dressed as Superman, which she more than managed, posting a very respectable time of 1:06:14.
Sylv Hull had no real ambitions other than to run a race, having also had a break from events. Realising early on that the course wouldn’t be helping her out, she stopped looking at the watch and posted a time of 54:30.
The men’s race was won by James Mellor of Rotherham Harriers in 34:39. The ladies race was won by Sarah Gaunt in 42:31.
The event was extremely well organised with closed roads around the city and great support. Both Julia and Sylv retired to McDonalds after the race to sit in silent shock at what they had just gone through.
