By race director Sam Carpenter of Sole Sisters Running Club.
For the 12th consecutive year, Sole Sisters organised the Bradley Stoke 10k, which has now become an integral part of the festival weekend. With an entry limit of 650 runners, the race sold out in record time.
From 6am on Sunday, members of Sole Sisters were either getting the Jubilee Centre set up at Race HQ or were out on the course delivering the water, putting up warning signs and generally getting ready for 8am when the runners started arriving to pick up their race numbers.
Six lead marshals gathered their own group of mile marshals, all equipped with goodie bags, and set-off to their marshal stations covering the entire 10km (6 mile) route. Each year, we need between 80 and 100 marshals for the event, and that includes two water stations. As in previous years, we’ve received such lovely feedback on how great and supportive our marshals were. We were ably assisted by 1st Bradley Stoke Guides at the start/finish, 1st Stoke Lodge Guides at Water Station No. 1 and Stoke Gifford Guides at Water Station No. 2.
The Bradley Stoke 10k has become a key race in the running community calendar and 566 entrants turned up for the race in near perfect conditions (although it was still quite warm if you were running!) and we had a mixture of club and non-club runners. The festival is often the first official engagement for the new Bradley Stoke mayor and we were pleased that newly appointed Cllr Ben Randles was on hand to give the runners some words of encouragement and for the prize-giving.
Maciej Bialogonski, a Bristol & West runner, was first across the line. He was in second place for the majority of the race, but sealed victory with a final push in the last kilometre, completing the course in 32:46. Sarah Herbert took first female place, completing the course in 42:45. Our fastest Bradley Stoke resident was Sam Cotterell, finishing in 35:39 and narrowly missing 3rd place (male) overall.
Every finisher received a medal, technical t-shirt, bottle of water (sponsored by Drive Vauxhall) and a banana.
Thanks go to our sponsors, without whom we would not be able to put on the event:
- C&M Services
- Wards Solicitors
- Dr Michael Frain
- Up & Running
- Bradley Stoke Physio
- Harbord Opticians
- Drive Vauxhall
- Bradley Stoke Matters
- Bradley Stoke Town Council
We are looking forward to next year’s race … do you feel inspired to take part?
Photo: 1 Runners are cheered by the crowd as they approach the finish line. 2 Bradley Stoke mayor Ben Randles with the first three male finishers (l-r) David Watkins (2nd), Maciej Bialogonski (1st) and Stephen Honight (3rd).
This article originally appeared in the July/August 2018 issue of the Bradley Stoke Journal news magazine (on page 25). The magazine is delivered FREE, EVERY MONTH, to ALL 8,700 homes in Bradley Stoke. Phone 01454 300 400 to enquire about advertising or leaflet insertion.
More info: Full race result (DB Max)
The Journal’s photos of the 2018 Bradley Stoke 10k
- Warm-up session with Sole Sisters (video on Facebook)
- Runners cross the start line (157 pictures on Facebook)
- Half-way point (29 pictures on Facebook)
Links to more photos and videos of the race can be found here.
