Cirencester Summer Sizzler 10k 2025

The other day, my husband and I, along with lots of members of our club, ran the Cirencester Summer Sizzler 10k. Organised by Cirencester Athletics & Triathlon Club, the Cirencester Summer Sizzler is a mid-week race taking place on an evening in June every year. It is part of both our club’s road race series and the Gloucestershire AAA race series, which I’m also taking part in.

I enjoy evening races, but I do get a bit nervous about them. It’s hard to fuel them right. The race started at 7:30pm, by which time I would usually have eaten all of my food for the day. Clearly I’m not going to do that before a race. But how much is too much? Or too little? At Stroud Beer Race a couple of weeks earlier, I felt I hadn’t eaten enough. So for Cirencester, I decided to eat my main meal at lunchtime, with a large snack of pitta bread and peanut butter at 4:30pm. I have IBS and a slight wheat intolerance, so the pittas before a race were always going to be a risk (although I usually eat them the day before a race).

We set off from home at 5:30pm, unsure how bad the rush hour traffic would be. We got to Cirencester pretty quickly and followed the sat nav to the car park. It sent us somewhere completely different. So we tried putting the name of the car park, rather than the postcode, into sat nav. It still went wrong. We were going to just choose a random car park elsewhere, when we worked out how to get to it. The Old Kennels car park is large and free after 5pm and literally a two minute walk from the start line.

Cirencester Summer Sizzler had the best turnout of runners from our club I’ve seen since the Linda Franks race in January. There were 600 runners overall. There was also a junior race at 6:30pm with more than 100 runners. There was a big toilet queue, but it moved pretty quickly as there were lots of portable toilets.

As we stepped out of the car, the sun and heat hit us. It was about 23C – not ideal running conditions. The temperature dropped slightly before the race and the sun was low in the sky with plenty of shade on the course. But it was still very hot!

As we headed for the start line, there was an announcement – all prizes will be based on gun time, not chip time. At most races, the top 3 men and women are based on gun time, but age category winners are based on chip time.

“So if you think you might win an age category prize, get near the front.”

My husband sent me forward and that was the last I saw of him until he finished.

I lined up next to the lady who won the FV60 prize at the Stroud Beer Race, just behind the very fast FV55 lady and a bit further behind the very fast lady from our club, who is an FV40. Even though this was only my third Gloucestershire AAA race, I’m already starting to recognise the faster runners in each age category, including my own competition.

My memories of the Cirencester Summer Sizzler from last year were of a fairly flat course, with just a climb to the finish line. My memories deceived me.

Being amongst the fastest runners, I set off fast. Too fast. Faster than I’m used to. On the plus side, I immediately overtook the woman from my age category who beat me at the Stroud Beer Race. I recognised the tattoo on her shoulder. As a runner, you rarely see other runners’ faces – only their backs. I’m pleased to say she never caught me!

We’d been warned about speed bumps at the start of the race and at various points around the course. On the first stretch of the race where it was very crowded, it would have been easy to trip on them. But there were signs and marshals pointing them out to us.

At the end of the starting stretch, we turn onto the main course, which is lovely and open. The whole race takes place inside Cirencester Park, which is a country estate. It’s part of our club’s road race series, but is not exactly a road. It is a tarmac surface, but the roads are only to serve the farm on the estate. We were told there was a possibility of cars and other people using the roads, but we didn’t see any.

The open bit of the course is a nice, gradual downhill. Then at 1km, there is a sharp turn. The course goes into the shade and almost immediately goes uphill. This first bit is quite steep, then it settles to a more gradual climb. There is a long country road, then another turn, back into the shade of the woods and a welcome downhill. Then it is back out onto the lovely open bit, running towards the church, on the other side of the walls of the country park. At this point, there were lots of spectators – mainly kids who’d run the junior race with their families.

There was a water station at 5k and I did my best to slurp a bit of it. It didn’t help me much! I needed to stop and drink it properly. Then we were onto the second lap and had to do it all again.

The heat meant it really was a summer sizzler. The hills felt tough. I was very thirsty and massively regretting my decision not to carry a drink. A lot of the slower runners were carrying them, but the faster runners never do. I will always carry a drink on a half marathon, but not usually on a 10k. I was also regretting the pitta bread I’d eaten. I needed the toilet all the way round, which was pretty uncomfortable.

Knowing I’d won the age category last year and knowing I needed to do my best for the Gloucestershire AAA series was putting extra pressure on me. I don’t have to chase the age category wins, but somehow I can’t resist! I really push myself hard and suffer for it. But I can do it and I recover pretty quickly, so I figure I might as well…

At the start, my pace was ahead of PB pace. Which, considering the heat and needing the toilet, was quite ridiculous.

I saw a man on the second lap on the ground, suffering with his ankle. Apparently a man collapsed in a similar place shortly after I’d run past. It was not a day for running fast.

I was back out into the open and it felt like I was close to the finish line. But I wasn’t. I passed the 9k marker and then it was almost an entire kilometre back to the finish line. It was a gradual climb and then a very steep climb. The need to stop or walk was quite overwhelming, but that wasn’t going to happen.

I crossed the line in 45:17 (chip time) – exactly the same as I’d run at Berkeley 10k in April. I was second in my age category, despite running a minute faster than last year, when I won the category. The good news for me is that the woman who won the category wasn’t a Gloucestershire club runner, which means maximum points on the race series.

My husband finished just over two minutes behind me and was feeling pretty rough. He lay down on the grass and drank a lot of water – things he would never normally do.

The Cirencester Summer Sizzler 10k was tough. But I’m glad I did it and I’ll no doubt be back!