Every year on the second Sunday in July, the Bridgend Centre runs the Bollington Nostalgia Hill Race to raise valuable funds for our charity. Last year, due to the social distancing measures in place, we decided to make the event a virtual challenge. Following the success of this format, this year (2021) we decided to do the same again due uncertainties around the pandemic and also to open up the event to a wider range of people.
The results are now in! We had fewer entrants this year than last, probably because runners are enjoying more ‘real-life’ events now as things open up. However, due to a number of people doing the event as a sponsored event, we have raised nearly £3000 for our Centre, which is absolutely phenomenal. This money will go towards our running costs following a difficult year when we have had to close our charity shop for long periods due to Covid restrictions.
A huge thank you to the Bridgend Super Team, Sara Knowles and Jo Maitland for running the race as a sponsored event through Just Giving. Your contribution has been amazing.
Thank you to the Macclesfield Harriers for making our traditional Hill Race route one of your training runs. It was great to see the lovely photos of key waymarks along the route and we hope to do it in person next year.
Also a massive thank you to the wonderful businesses who sponsored our event by donating a prize including Patagonia, Red Willow, Fruits of the Forage, The Indian Goat, Running Bear, The Village Florist, The Green, No 74 Deli, Pappas, Forest Gin, Co-op, The Flower House Bollington, Bollington Convenience Store, The Mulberry Leaf, Knowles Green and Chadwicks.
All our wonderful entrants will be awarded the famous ‘I ran the Bollington Nostalgia Virtual Race 2021’ pink badge and category winners will be awarded a lovely medal hand carved by Anna Barker at the Centre. Again we have had entrants from a wide area including Scotland, which is fabulous.
The race is usually a set route from the Bridgend Centre, up Hedgerow and over to Bakestonedale Moor, returning via Macclesfield Canal (map pictured below). However, this was a virtual challenge and we had only one stipulation, that competitors run 10k. So it is totally up to the competitors whether they ran our famous hill race route or another route of their choice.