Report by Lewis Glover

Whilst this was my fourth participation at the Tunnels and Trails event, it was my first 10K stint, as all my previous entries
had been in the fun run with my daughter Fleur. In fact this was my first official 10k event of any type!

It has to be said there was an impressive turnout despite what the Derbyshire weather had cooked up for us, 295 entrants, all ready to tackle the trail and the wettest June on record
for a number of years. There was a sort of respite in the weather before the fun run started, which was welcome.  However, once the runners got going there was still what might be best described as a water-splash obstacle before the tunnel, but other than that the trail drains well so standing water did not pose an issue.

It was great to see a wide scope of entrants, from young infants in the fun run to all ages from under-18s to V70 in the 10k, some of whom were buggy-pushing participants!

There was also impressive cakeage to be had at the end, which certainly helped to spur me, and I’m sure other runners, on for those last 2 or 3 kilometres!

Wirksworth ran strongly, especially in the Male V50 category, taking 4 of the top 5 spots.  Wirksworth times were: 

9th John Potter 38:45, 13th Glenn Baird 39:20, 31st John Hobson 42:29, 34th Mark Crawshaw 43:13, 46th Lewis Glover 45:13, 53rd James Watson 46:28, 101st Carrie Clark 52:19, 198th Susan O’Boyle 1:06:05.

The official feedback from my 9-year-old is that it was good fun, the weather didn’t bother her, and she’s looking forward to next year and putting in an even better performance in (she climbed an impressive 10 places from last year!)