Cabbage Patch 10

The Cabbage Patch 10

The Cabbage Patch 10 is a highly professional race. It is a race organised by runners for runners and is almost as old as the London Marathon! It is one of the flattest, most scenic ten mile races in the country aimed at runners of all standards on roads and towpaths. Starting in King Street, Twickenham, the route crosses the Thames at Kingston Bridge and Richmond Bridge, runs along the Riverside to finish on the drive in front of the York House Civic Building in Twickenham. This is the 34th year that the race has been run.

The Cabbage Patch 10 was founded in 1982 by Frank Dupree, ex landlord of the Cabbage Patch Pub and Malcolm Ellis, founding member of The Stragglers Running Club. For you mathematicians out there it was not run last year because of the Rugby World Cup. Over the years this race as raised around £100,000 for charity.

The Cabbage Patch is actually named after the nickname of Twickenham Rugby Stadium. Before the stadium was constructed, the site was used to grow cabbages and hence the giving of cabbages as prizes to the top runners. Previous winners and high placed finishers include Olympian Mo Farah, Scott Overall and Mara Yamauchi. Richard Nerurkar set an all-time British Record on the course in 1993 – a stunning 46:02. Also in the race that day was Rob Edwards our WebEd who finished around 20 minutes later. He said “that was a good time for me back then, it was a perfect course for a PB and in those days the changing was in the pub, very convenient.” This year’s winning time was 48:16.

The race Director this year was Caitlin Limmer a great longstanding friend of SIDMOUTH Running Clubs Justin and Claire Ashby who previous lived in Twickenham and this was the reason they were on the start line in the Mighty Green on Sunday morning, unfortunately there was no cabbage for their dinner this time.

Justin who is running extremely well at the moment, recording a PB of 35:30 for a 10K only a few weeks ago, finished 34th in a time of 58:41 which also won him his age group category. Claire also ran a very steady race after very little training finishing comfortably inside the top half of the field in 1:24:37. The popularity of this race can be seen by the number of finishers, 1452.

And a final word from Caitlin “The race will continue to be what it has always been; a race of legends, both for the Olympic athlete and the common runner.” Truly a race for all.