(Photo Mike Lambden) For the uninitiated, although the very first race was in 1852 with revivals in 1913 and 1923, the event as we know it today was resurrected in 1960 and has metamorphosised from 96 starters in 1961 with 4 finishers to the modern monster where this year there was a mammoth 1800+ entries of which a record 203 managed to stagger to the finishing line, having visited all 17 of the Island parish churches over 85 miles of road walking.
These days there's no way that you could live here and not know about it as there are day-glo clad people clutching bottles of water in training 12 months of the year and with at least as many others involved in the marshalling, officiating, timekeeping, feeding and watering the participants both from stations and cars, it is the Island's biggest sporting occasion besides the TT.
Despite this year's atrocious (though nothing like as bad as 2008) weather the support from the entire Isle of Man community was immense.
The Manx Telecom Parish Walk to give it it's full title is also at the forefront of technology with state of the art timing and tracking systems enabling people to follow progress over the internet and through text messaging from Port Soderick to Sydney. In fact demand was so huge for information that 36,000 hits were made on the website, about 3 times as many as the previous year, unfortunately causing it to crash.
Although primarily still a Manx dominated event due to the necessity of having a support car for the last 43 miles or so, this year at the Welbeck, we had visiting athletes from Belgium, U.K. and our old chums Martijn Biesmans, Alex Wijsman and their friend Antoine Huntings all from Holland.
(photo: Karen Kneale) Add into the equation our German coach party, staff from Poland, Thailand and Bulgaria, we certainly had a colourful mixture of nations.
There were certainly plenty of other walkers from places as far away as South Africa and the Czech Republic to lend the race an international flavour.
Irene deserves special mention, making the full circuit on her 10th attempt and only one of The Welbeck entrants failed to complete the lap and Iain Thompson's 52.5 miles to Bride was certainly no shame.
(Photo: Karen Kneale) Personally, I yet again failed to win, though I had the satisfaction of coming home inside the previous course record, making me the 3rd fastest ever. However, having led for 50 miles or so and suffering repeated sickness it felt like scant consolation to have been pipped by the deserved joint winners, Vinny Lynch and Richard Gerrard who beat me by about 4.5 minutes to post a brilliant 14:42:32.
Sue Biggart won the ladies' race for an incredible 7th time.
For more information about the race or any other athletic events on the Isle of Man, see: www.parishwalk.com or www.manxathletics.com
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