Judgement Day - Mad Dog 10K

I just love everything about this 10K and it's my favourite by far. Brilliantly well organised and great course for a PB if you get the weather.

Collected Wallace early for this one and on the way through picked up a bleary-eyed Derrick Marsh mumbling something about the earliness given that we were only travelling to Southport.

If anyone of us were going to win something today it was first through the gates to park up and we duly arrived just before eight bells...we were third!

Parked up in plenty of time a mere two hours before race start. Derrick had agreed to bring the travel Scrabble to pass some time but it soon came apparent that this was not part of his pre-night prep for race day. He forgot to bring it...gutted!

We all went for a wander round, got our T-shirts, had a brew and waited for race start. Time soon passed and we began our race warm ups only for the race to be delayed by some 30 mins.

The announcement soon came that the race would be off at 11.10am I think due to transporting runners by bus to start venue from the outlying car parks. It pays to be early!

At 11.10am came the usual pre-race announcements, the requisite three howls that the race director asks for, and we were off! It's a flying start from outside the school and up onto the front for the run down to the pier.

It's a well supported race with a steel band playing and even Elvis singing "We're caught in a race!" just before the 5K mark. A very flat course this one and we had the wind pushing us on before the turnaround.

It's then a run up and back down the opposite side to where we had just been. Bit of a headwind for the return trip which brings you back down the road we had come. Sharp right and a 500m dash for the inflatable finish line.

Great times all round with Dave Lord flying again, though not sure this was a PB day given the weather. Still a fantastic race to compete in if you get chance to put in your calendar.

I'm not sure if Derrick will want a lift again but Wallace and I always like to get there early for our races. Huddersfield 10K next...