Bronze at National 6 Stage & Fastest leg for Ryan

Saturday 16th October saw the senior men take a fantastic bronze medal in the National 6 stage Road Relays at Sutton Park. Stirky's finish is in the photo below and you can see the fast closing Belgrave and Aldershot in the background.

nigelstirk

First up was Ben Gamble who ran a good first leg with 18.05 - over 20 seconds faster than his Midlands time - and coming in 27th. Handing over to Phil Hinch who picked up 5 places with a 17.51 clocking. Then came Ryan Mcleod who absolutely flew round to the fastest clocking of the day with 17.03, storming through the field and bringing the team up to 4th place after 3 legs. Mike Aspinall then improved his Midlands time for a great 17.28 and pick up another place to take us into the medals. Phil Nicholls was then on the crucial 5th leg and even though running in the worst of the weather, with a quick squall in the middle of his leg, he pulled out 17.21 to take us into the lead. This was Phil's 16th 6stage out of the last 18 possible (both mids and national as he's not that old!) which is a tremendous record. So all the pressure was on Stirky. Going up the hill we could see that Matt Janes of Bedford was likely to catch and pass Nige, but the other medals were up for grabs. After a steady start Nige tried to stick with Bedford along the top to drag him away from the chasers. Coming back past keepers pool Shettleston had caught us but Nige was just about holding him off. It was going to go down to the wire and it was still neck and neck as they turned into the home straight. Then with 50 yards to go the young Shettleston runner turned on the afterburners and stretched away from Nigel. But he'd done a great job and held off all the other teams to secure another National medal. Great excitement to be had.

 

National 6-stage 2010  
  
A Team 

Ben Gamble 0:18:05 27
Phil Hinch 0:17:51 22
Ryan McLeod 0:17:03 4
Mike Aspinall 0:17:28 3
Phil Nicholls 0:17:21 1
Nigel Stirk 0:18:29 3
 1:46:17 
  
B Team

Tom Holden 0:18:41 48
Dan Beier 0:18:31 43
Ian Rawlinson 0:18:12 34
Ste Abrahams 0:19:49 37
Phil Clamp 0:19:56 38
Jelle Verwer 0:18:18 30
 1:53:27