Annoyingly scheduled for the same day as the Eaton Stampede, the Stilton Stumble is a fantastic local road race based around Cropwell Bishop. This year’s schedule clash clearly impacted on numbers as only 217 people took on the 10k (including 5 Striders), and 67 challenged themselves over the longer 24k distance. After some questioning over the course length following last year’s event, the courses had been officially re-measured and lengthened slightly.
After winning the 10k event last year, Jason Barton was looking to retain his crown, and quite definitely did all that he could to do so, taking almost a minute off his winning time from last year to finish in 35.29. Sadly, with any event like this, it is all dependent on who turns up on the day, and although this pace put him 2 whole minutes ahead of third place, it was not enough to seal the victory as the course record was smashed by a runner from Shelton who got round in 34.45.
Next Strider back was 12th placed Darren Glover who ran a superb race to finish in 40.37. Ben Pickard was on the cusp of a PB with 45.16, followed by Sarah Proctor (52.45). Laura Pickard took a massive 3 minutes from her PB to finish under the hour mark for the first time in 58.32.
Shane Sharkey was the only Strider to take on the 24k course and got around in 1.53.02 – 20th place. [Shane]