About us

Sandbach Striders was born back in 2003. Since the early days, membership has grown with a firm ethos of the club being not just about running but social activities as well. The club is affiliated to UK AAA and has its own qualified coaches. Many other special events take place on various nights too.

The club meets on Wednesdays at 18:30 and Sundays at 09:00 at Elworth Cricket Club.

Whilst many members compete in races from 5k to Marathons, the emphasis remains purely on keeping people motivated and having fun. Why not scan through our race reports to see what we’ve been up to? Having read them, you’re sure to see why Sandbach Striders has developed the motto of being

"No Ordinary Running Club!"

Tuesday 24 September 2013

Race Report: Salford Quays 10k 08/09/2013

I did this race last year and because it is a flat course I thought I would give it another go this year. 

I arrived at the Lowry Outlet Mall with plenty of time to park and get to the start line, but shortly after lining up they announced there was a delay – couldn’t quite hear what….  Then after another 20 minutes or so a guy with a megaphone shouted something about ‘trams’ and ‘being stopped’ or something or other.

Eventually we started to move forward and over the start mats.  As you would expect the beginning was a bit congested but after a short distance it ‘clogged’ up again whilst people negotiated around some tricky bollards along the pedestrian area of Salford Quays. 

After a couple of kilometres everything settled down and it was time for me to mentally tick off the kilometres to the half-way point.  

Apart from the Club 10k Handicap, this was the first 10k race that I had done in over a year, so I was feeling a bit anxious about my pace and if I could finish in a respectable time.   Leading up to the half-way point I was feeling OK and made the decision not to slow down and grab a drink from the water station.  The weather was fairly warm but not as hot as when I took part in this race last year.

From 5k onwards I decided that I needed to start ‘picking’ a few people off, which helped to distract me from the time and distance that I was running (even though it was only 10k)!  This strategy worked and then in the last 2k I upped the pace with the hope that I might be on for a PB. 

The last kilometre is up and over the bridge back down to the Lowry, then along a tree lined path and back to the finish.  Just as you come over the bridge the timing clock is visible and I was gutted to see that I had run over 56 minutes and had another kilometre to run – doing a quick calculation in my head meant that I had missed my PB, even though I thought I had been running faster.     I can hear you all saying ‘but what about your Garmin’ , well, in all the delay at the start I had forgotten to press start until some minutes into the race so I hadn’t really been looking at it.

The queue for the ‘goody bag’ was really bad and I nearly gave up and came home without one but decided to stick it out.  There was a medal, bottle of water and a small rucksack.

Worsley Physio was providing a free sports massage pre and post race, so I took advantage of this.  The queue for the physio was nearly as long as for the goody bag but you got to the front much quicker.  Whilst waiting my turn, I suddenly realised that the clock time that I had seen would have been slower than my actual time as I’d been mid pack at the start …. !  Doh!

I called and got Millie’s cookies (more than I needed) and a drink before leaving the Lowry Mall.  You had to spend £5 to get your car parking ticket stamped so that you didn’t have to pay the standard car parking fee.  I then drove home and quickly checked the results page… Yippee 58.44 a new PB for me!! 

I seem to be having a problem with finishing lines, times and watches at the moment!

For more information, visit the website.

Jill J.

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