Road Relays at Weekend

Saturday saw the Senior Men and Women battling the best team's in the country in the sunshine over at Sutton Park.

The ladies set off at high noon and got off to a good start with Hayley Jennings on first leg coming in 34th with 15.39. then in what I think was Sophie Lynch's first senior national race she ran well to hold roughly the same position with 16.59 to be followed by Cath Vesysey in 16.57 and Lynne Cox in 16.17 to finish in 31st. The B team were missing a fourth runner and had Amie Fithern 17.14, Sophie Ward 17,22, Sarah Farmer 10.12.

The men's race ended up being the best standard in the last 10 years as was shown with Ian "Welshy" Williams running a great race for 17.38 on first leg and only coming in 25th. Mike Aspinall had an absolute stormer in the B team to finish just ahead of Ian in with 17.35, throwing the team manager into a state of anguish. Mike had the team's run of the day knocking 59s off his Midlands time from four weeks ago. Great run.

Second leg saw Hinchy move the team up the field (and past the B team) into 17th place with a very solid 17.55, which after a much interupted summer was good to see. Martin Williams then took up the charge taking us through into the top ten with 17.35 and his fastest time on the course by a long way. Phil Nicholls then ran the team's fastest time with 17.29 but unfortunately had serious problems at the end of the race with breathing and had to be given oxygen in the ambulance. Much credit to Phil for putting himself on the line and still running the way he did, sounds like he should be okay.

Starting off in 7th place on fifth leg was Ade Holliday in his debut team race who ran extremely well to pull us up to 6th with a 17.47 clocking. Last leg was Dan Beier (18.22) who was up against it with a Shettleston Eritrean and Ian Hudspith from Morpeth chasing him down. 8th was a bit disappointing but it was a solid performance and was not far off the time that won us silver three years ago. Other teams are upping their game and so must we

The B team finished in 36th place and 6th B. Tom Holden 19.06, John Millington 19.51, Phil Clamp 19.20, Mike Buntin 18.36, James Ratcliffe 19.06.