Sharpness 4 race 2026

I recently took part in the Sharpness 4 – a four mile road race based at Sharpness Docks in Gloucestershire. Organised by Dursley Running Club, it is part of the Gloucestershire AAA road race series. This year, it was also part of our club’s road race series, so there were lots of members of the club there.

The day started very cold and very misty. It was my first race since the Fission 20 in March this year when I didn’t wear suncream. Last year, it was a brand new race, with not many runners. This year, there were a lot more. Driving into Sharpness Docks is quite surreal. It is a working docks and very industrial. It almost feels like stepping back in time.

The race HQ is Sharpness Sports and Social Club on the docks site. Marshals from Dursley RC directed us to park on the grass downhill from the social club. Then it was a scramble up a steep bank to pick up numbers and timing tags from the registration tent. The toilets were the social club toilets, which was just two cubicles for the ladies. After watching men queue for the toilet at the previous week’s Bourton half marathon, normal service was resumed with a long queue for the ladies. The bag drop was just leaving your stuff inside the social club. Alternatively, I could have just left it in the car, but I didn’t want to walk back across the wet grass or climb up the steep bank again!

I did a short warm-up, still wearing my jumper as it was so cold, then lined up for the start of the race.

At 10:30am, we were off! And straight down the hill on a rather gravelly road. Then a right turn onto an out and back, passing a row of houses. A tight turn and we were heading back the way we’d come. Of course, the hill and the fact that the race was only four miles, meant that I started off pretty quickly.

Last year’s time was 29:03, which was pretty fast – a 7:15 min/ mile pace. My husband said he didn’t think I’d beat that. I wasn’t sure whether I would, but I thought there was a chance.

We then ran below the social club and crossed a footbridge over the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal. At a mile, we ran past a couple of large concrete blocks, which we’d been warned about, and then we were heading uphill. The initial slope was pretty steep. It was followed by a short downhill and then it felt like we were climbing for nearly the whole race!

As ever, I hadn’t read back my blogpost from last year and had forgotten how much climbing was involved.

The race is all on open roads, mainly country lanes, but also a road running through the main Sharpness village, with lots of parked cars on it. We’d been warned to be especially careful on this stretch – to stay on the left side of the road and definitely not be tempted to cross the white line onto the right side. As it is all on open roads, it is a no headphones race, which was fine with me as it is so short.

We then turned left through the village of Brookend and we were still climbing. The hills weren’t quite steep enough for me to consider walking, but I did see a couple of people walking. I found myself running with the same lady I’d run part of Bourton half marathon with the previous week. She said she likes running with me as she knows we’re not in the same age category! I totally agreed with her. There’s no pressure on us. We just run in a way which feels comfortably uncomfortable and don’t have to race each other.

There was a short downhill at about three miles and I thought surely we were done with climbing? But we weren’t. Funnily enough, it doesn’t matter whether you’re running four miles or 13, you always want it to be over in the last mile.

We kept climbing until 3.5 miles. From that point, I could see the social club and all the parked cars in the distance. Now we just had to run downhill and back the way we’d come – past the concrete block, over the footbridge and onto the grounds of the social club. Luckily we didn’t have to climb up to it, the finish line was on the lower level, where the cars were parked.

It wasn’t until the race finished that I realised the mist had cleared, the sun was shining and it had suddenly got really warm.

I crossed the finish line in 28:46 – 17 seconds faster than last year. I’d run it at 7:09 min/ miles, which I would consider a pretty good pace for 5k. Finishers got the choice of a medal, chocolate or sweets. I chose chocolate (Crunchie Rocks!) as the medal was identical to last year.

I was the first lady for my club and the third runner overall for my club. I was second in my age category. That’s the first time I’ve come second in my age category at a local race (Cheltenham half marathon doesn’t count as it’s a mass participation event) since the Dave Lucas Memorial 10k in July. I’ve never come across the woman who beat me before. It turns out she’s someone who has just turned 50, so she is in the FV45 category for the road race series, so I still got my maximum series points!

Sharpness 4 2026 confirmed I’ve held on to the Gloucestershire AAA road race trophy for another season, as my main rival can’t beat me on the final race of the season. Nobody whose name is on the trophy (which dates back to 2013) has retained it for two consecutive years.

So that was a good morning of running!