A bright and sunny morning greeted the 1,000-plus runners who lined up to tackle distances of five or ten kilometres at the first ever running of the Shock Absorber WomenOnly Run, with many taking part in support of official charity Breast Cancer Care.
The event kicked off with a warm up courtesy of sponsors Shock Absorber, followed by a few words of encouragement from TV personality Denise Van Outen before the 5k race got underway, followed by the 10k event 15 minutes later.
In the longer of the two races the closed-road course proved to be a fast one as Jenny Gowans (Team Freespeed) got away from the gun and quickly built a commanding which she held to the end in an impressive time of 36 minutes 29 seconds. Second place went to Sarah Bullman in 36:43 before Gemma Farrell rounded out the podium in the day’s longer race in 37:34.
In the five kilometre event, Charlotte Wheeler posted the only sub-20 minute time of the day with her 19:02 easily good enough for the win. In second place was Penny Echevarria in 21:36 followed by Megan Pearson in third in a time of 22 minutes 39 seconds. After the race, Jenny Gowans, the winner of the 10k event said; “I’m absolutely shattered... a great course and I’m pretty happy with a PB – and my Shock Absorber bra prize!”
The day was about more than just the frontrunners though as the vast majority of the participants ran in pink to show their support for Breast Cancer Care and their own loved ones undergoing treatment for the disease. Lorraine Brinkley, who came all the way from Cardiff for the event, was one of those running in memory of someone close; “I’m definitely not a runner and I did struggle in places, but the support from the people watching and the other ladies running got me round. I was running for my mum so to be able to do something like this with so many other ladies was just perfect really.”
The next events in the WomenOnly series are the Shock Absorber WomenOnly Triathlon on Sunday the 10th of June and the Speedo WomenOnly Open Water Swim on the same day.
Full results can be found in the Shock Absorber WomenOnly Run Results and Gallery.
