Birmingham 10K: ByteSnap Runners Among Record-Breaking Participants

L-R: Calum, Chris and Ville at the end of the run

Three ByteSnap engineers have vowed to take on the 2019 Birmingham 10K Run after a snap decision to join this year’s event.

Calum, Chris and Ville were among a record-breaking 8,000 runners participating in the Simplyhealth Great Birmingham 10k earlier this month, on May Bank Holiday Sunday.

The engineers were last minute entrants: “As an alumnus, a few weeks ago I got a letter from the University of Birmingham urging me to take part,” explained Chris. “I’d done quite a bit of trail running, so I thought I’d try an official, timed run – and managed to get Calum and Ville to join in too!”

Calum, who ran a very respectable 1 hour 54 seconds, reflected “It was such a hot day – absolutely roasting.

“The announcers on the tannoys kept saying ‘Don’t worry about your personal bests.’ Beforehand, I was worried about an old knee injury and getting a good time, but on the day I just got in the zone and enjoyed it!”

As well as that, thousands of Brummies lined the streets to show support for the runners and cheer them on.

Ville (finishing time 1hr 3min) was thrilled after his first-ever major run: “It was a bit last minute, training on the treadmill was really hard, only got to about 7K!

“On the day though, fantastic – great atmosphere and loads of encouragement! The low point for me was when I saw the 1K sign and realised I’d only done a 10th of it! But the best bit was when people were chucking water on me through Balsall Heath – just felt amazing!”

“Yeah, residents with water hoses…kids with their water pistols, that was actually really good,” agreed Chris, who finished in a time of 57 minutes 11 seconds. “The music was great as well…there was 60s, 70s, 80s, Noughties, Classical…even a steel band!”

Great Birmingham 10K Run Image: Birmingham Mail

TV viewers were able to watch the event live on Channel 5, as the runners raised an estimated £1.5 million for charity.

The ByteSnap engineers say they’ll be back for 2019’s event:”We’re quite a fit and sporty bunch in the office, so we’ll be roping in more colleagues for next year’s run,” vowed Calum.

Until then, Calum, Chris and Ville have their eye on upcoming events – including the Birmingham Half Marathon in October.