The Waddle is part of a very enjoyable village event that includes multiple rubber duck races (with various betting pools), a tough ducker obstacle course event for the youngsters and various fete stalls including trampolines, inflatable slides, tea and cakes from the Scouts etc. Unsurprisingly for a successful village fete, it takes place in front of one of the local pubs, who sponsor the barbecue.
The first event of the day is a 5 mile out-and-back UKA approved chip-timed run along a closed road, starting at the edge of the event (within sniffing distance of the Sunday morning bacon sandwiches!). The route is simple and basically rises, with a few undulations, to the turn-around point with a water station, then returns the same way to the finish.
The 2022 event unfortunately didn’t sell out, which is disappointing for a friendly event with relatively low prices and a t-shirt, water bottle and banana at the end, as well as activities for family spectators. However, 228 people finished with the first man home being Aston Perrin of Long Eaton in 25:44 and the first woman being Gemma Steel (yes that one) in 26:54.
Grantham Running Club’s only participant was Peter Bonner who finished in 15th place with a chip time of 32:29. Peter’s review is that this is a good race, close to Grantham and should be more visible to other Club Runners. The course requires careful management with the first half being mostly uphill, but the advantage of the out and back format is that everything that goes up in the first half allows you to go down in the second half. This fed into Peter’s preferences and he was able to overtake half a dozen runners in the second half to finish strongly.