Stockport Daffodil 10km 2026
Published by on 2026-01-25 in 🔖 running 🔖 race 🔖 trawdenac
A brief article about my race at the Stockport Daffodil 10km on 25 January 2026.
Until very recently I had no plans to race any time soon, my next scheduled race being the Great North Run in September.
Fate had other ideas though. Vickie has been getting enthusiastically into running since joining Accrington Road Runners. So enthusiastically that she has injured herself and could not run in this race which she had entered. So midweek I paid just £10 to transfer the entry. A 45 minute drive in circles around Stockport later, and I had my race number in hand late Thursday night.
I didn't really know what to expect if I'm being honest. I've been training with Trawden for a few months now, and though I can feel form and speed coming back, most of my running has been at a recovery pace, with a few hill and speed sessions mixed in. I've lost a lot of weight though, and my movement feels so much better - I feel that my running has advanced much more strongly this winter because of that than it has in previous attempts to get up and running. I can feel some speed coming back, but with a niggling doubt about endurance while taking Mounjaro, and more latterly Wegovy.
I said to Vickie beforehand that I was aiming for 55 minutes, but I wasn't sure that I'd hold on to that, and that I would be happy with anything under an hour. I probably expected to come in around 57:30.
Once I'd parked up at Hazel Grove Station, walked over to the race (20 minutes) and popped to the loo, there was just time to pop to the loo before the start. The route consists of an out and back on Woodford Road to the Manchester Airport Link Road, where it runs up and down both carriageways before returning toward to start. Rarely flat, the route is rolling throughout with gentle climbs and descents, and a few that are not so gentle too!
I found the start pretty congested, as so often not starting sufficiently near to the front, losing a couple of minutes to the congestion, and to correcting some badly tied laces. I was happy coming though 5km at just under 27:30, I thought that I might be able to get to 54 minutes, but with a niggling doubt about endurance in the final kilometers.
I really lent into the climb back up the dual carriageway, and averaging just over 5min/km for the remainer of the race I came in with a chip time of 52:56. A big negative split, and far better than anything I thought was possible. My best 10km since the summer of 2016, when I was still firmly in my 30s.
So all in all I was really happy with the race. I think there is faster to come given that my training has barely started for the year yet, and I'm just putting the perfromance down to 15kg less to carry rather than anything to do with training.