Shipley winter BDL 2024

By Lewis Glover

Wirksworth Running Club made its mark on the first Derby Runner BDL of the season!

The weather was kind for the opening race of the 2024-25 winter season for which 260 runners had donned their respective club tops and headed over to Shipley Park.

Our own 15 strong team included a trio of members running their first BDL ever! (Liz Lawrence, Chris Hall & Gavin Stewart were up for the challenge,) plus another trio in Graham, Carlos and Danny competing in their second such race after coming back for more BDL action subsequent to each having sampled a BDL run during the 2024 summer season.

All the runners assembled on the large paddock behind the Shipley visitor centre and as is the common format for the winter runs, instead of thundering down the field from the start line onto the cinder track as per the direction for the course in summer, the winter race commences in reverse with the slight uphill start to the top corner of the field, with a couple of pinch points to be navigated before the pack naturally spread out a bit. The route then took the regular two lap format with a variety of grass, tracks, and woodland paths underfoot (and some inclines which most of us who’ve run it in previous years seemed to have erased from our memory..) There were nice wide open smooth running grassland areas, coupled with more technical wooded sections where runners had to dance over the tree roots (thankfully well marked out as usual by host club Ripley,) thin gaps in fences, short tarmac bits, and some less than dry sections all adding to the mix.

The WRC team effort was truly phenomenal, with the following individual results;
First place M70: Graham Smith
First place F55: Helen Moxon
2 x top 10 placed M40 (Chris Hall & Richard Ward)

Chris and Richard proved to be very swift, being placed 22nd and 34th respectively overall. Gavin also managed to finish up within the ‘magic 100′. Carlos’ new shoes resulted in him motoring round the winter course three minutes quicker than he did the summer one! And Liz and Danny both ran consistently – finishing only 40 seconds between themselves after the 5 mile course!

Full results can be found on Webscorer here;