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Wadham's Town and Gown 2026 runners in Front Quad before the race.
Ben Cooper, Head of HR and organiser of Team Wadham, shares his experience of this year's Town and Gown 10K.
As in previous years, our team met in the main quod before the start for a group photo. As always, support throughout the route from the local community was superb. It was a lovely atmosphere and again, there was a thought to who might be the fastest?
Different this year, though, was our desire to race in memory of one of our Chemistry undergraduates - Yihong Wang – who sadly passed away in 2024. Yihong Wang’s friends set up a JustGiving page to raise money for a superb charity: Headway - the brain injury association. I am delighted to say that through the kindness of nearly 50 different donors the sum of £1,500 was raised in Yihong's honour, which was £500 more than we had hoped for.
Thank you to everyone who helped make this happen as it was a true College-wide effort. Runners and their friends and family were kindly hosted by Robert and Celia at the Warden's lodgings after the race for delicious refreshments provided by the Kitchen and SCR/Hall teams. The generosity of spirit that was so evidently on display was rather wonderful and for me personally it was the most special Town and Gown race ever.
As always, we look to who would win the much sought after accolade of being College champion. Last year it was our own Sean Kelly from Housekeeping, but could he retain the title? He most certainly did! Running a personal best time of 34 minutes and 7 seconds, Sean managed to finish 13th out of over 5,800 runners. An outstanding achievement.
Each year it is also my honour to consider another winner – for the ‘spirit of Wadham’ award. This year that goes to Sophia Holme, who not only encouraged her partner to enter too as an honorary Wadham team member but whose enthusiasm for the race was matched only by her steely determination to finish.
Bravo to both our winners and my thanks to all of you who supported the fundraising. The JustGiving page is still open if you would like to donate but have not yet done so. My respect to members of the College community who, inspired by the events on 10 May, have committed to running it next year, some for the first time ever.
I hope you’ll join us in 2027 to see if Sean can make it a hat trick, if I can ever finish the race without turning purple, and to see if next year is our biggest team entry yet.
