Silverstone 10k

Six members of Grantham Running Club headed to the home of British motorsport to take part in the 35^th Silverstone 10K on Wednesday 4^th September. Using the old Grand Prix circuit – now known as the ‘Bridge Circuit’ the two lap race has since 1984 been the opening round of the popular East Midlands Grand Prix series of midweek races which takes place over the late spring and early summer. Resurfacing work on the circuit however forced the event to be moved for one year only to September and became a non-scoring race of the GP Series. 

Although the circuit is mostly fast and flat with just a slight climb from Club to Abbey, the former air base is notorious for being affected by winds and the 2019 edition of the Silverstone 10K was blighted by particularly blustery conditions which made running fast times tough. Despite the sub optimal conditions the race does offer runners the rare opportunity to run on a circuit graced in years gone by many legends of Formula One and other motorsport disciplines.

Nichola Webster was first home for GRC in 56:11, her time nearly two minutes down on her PB set at this year’s Summer Solstice.  Tracy Webb was a similar amount of time behind her best, coming in just under the hour in 59:35. It was the same story for Claire Fritz who finished in 63:10 with Yvonne Buckley just over a minute outside her 2019 best with 63:11. Vicky Willan improved on her previous 2019 10K outing by nearly three minutes, clocking 65:40, with Simon Hartley finishing in Vicky’s slipstream with 65:44 representing his quickest 10K of the year so far. 

The race was won by Michael Aldridge of Wooton Road Runners in 32:10 with Alice Ritchie of Marshall Milton Keynes AC the winning woman in 37:01. There were 1247 finishers.