National Men’s 12 and Ladies 6 Stage Road Relays – 17 April 2010

On a beautifully sunny April day the Men’s and Ladies teams competed in the National road relay championship in Sutton Park, Birmingham.

Thanks in particular must go to Rachel Ward for helping with the team, as well as to Barrie Roberts, Chris Harlan Marks, and Paul Foot for stepping in at late notice to cover for the inevitable late withdrawals due to injuries and Icelandic ash clouds !!
 
The Men’s team competed well and finished 54th in a time of 5:06. There were a number of good performances led by Dean Parker returning to form ducking under 30 minutes for the long stage; promising debuts for the club by Andrew Clayton and Simeon Paine, and long stage debuts for Andy Crawford, and Gareth Cadd. Not only did Chris Harlan Marks step in at late notice, he also ran a personal best for the course after foregoing the crème in one of the scones the ladies kindly provided. It’s always enjoyable to have the ladies at the same event, but we do need to keep the cakes back until after we’ve competed !!
 
Overall a solid performance, but as a club it would be good to aim for a top 40 finish next time. This will mean running the long stages in around 31 minutes, and the short stages in 17 minutes. There’s 12 months to go before the next one, so plenty of time to gear ourselves up to prepare for that and the x-country season starting in September.

BvH photos here. Brian Smith’s photos: men/women. Bryan Dale’s photos here. Full results: men/women.

Men:

Women’s ‘A’

Women’s ‘B’