National Men's 6-Stage Road Relay: 22nd
Our men's team finished a creditable 22nd today in the ERRA National 6-Stage Road Relay at Sutton Park near Birmingham. The event was, as always, hard-fought and had plenty of quality. There was one interesting sub-plot involving the South of England clubs, and another involving the Metropolitan CC League clubs. While Matt Shone ran our fastest leg on stage 1, all the team performed solidly and the total team time compared well in historic terms.
After finishing only 17th in the Southern championships 3 weeks ago we were significantly stronger this time round, and team manager Terry McCarthy was hoping for a team time of 1:50.00-1:51.30 and a position of 17-20. There was also an element of local rivalry with our familiar Met League foes Shaftesbury and Highgate (4th and 5th in the Southern) and league leaders Serpentine, and an enthusiasm to provide a better showing relative to our other Southern rivals than we had at Aldershot in the Southerns.
Something of a Stage One specialist, Matt Shone put us in a sound position by finishing 23rd of the 82 teams that started the race (some clubs fielded 'B' and even 'C' teams). Shone's run involved the usual massive sprint to the line that just failed to bring him home beneath the 18 minute barrier on the 5.84K leg - he was timed at 18.01. Shaftesbury were 20" ahead of us, with Highgate 10" and Serpentine 40" behind.
Given that his best in many appearances here is 18.06, Daniel Agustus ran a very decent 18.14 on leg 2, but dropped 4 spots to 28th at this, still early, stage. He went past men, and men went past him, but little changed in the gaps to Shaftesbury and Highgate (whose former international Ben Noad strained a hamstring in the latter stages and hobbled to the handover), though Serpentine's top man Nick Torry closed the gap to 15" behind us.
Hywel Care got off to a confused start when a supporter, who had confused Tipton with ourselves, shouted to him that our leg 2 man had already arrived and he should get going. He started, stopped, and started again as he got conflicting signals. Once into his running, he ran a sound 18.33, possibly slightly slowed by a half-track session in spikes on Thursday night, and the clubs he passed included Shaftesbury as he worked us into 23rd, with Serpentine now around a minute behind.
After racing while injured last weekend, Bertie Powell had taken several days off and was unsure how he would do. He "felt rubbish" all the way around, but turned in another good team run of 18.38. He was passed by top men Dave Webb and Ian Hudspith whose clubs, Leeds and Morpeth, had, surprisingly, been behind us at the half-way point, and we were back in 26th after 4 legs. Behind Powell, two top Met League individuals, Henry Dodwell and Orlando Edwards, brought Highgate and Shaftesbury to within touching distance.
Gareth Lloyd had been the last man selected for the team, and we thought a sub-19 minute run would be pleasing. That's what we got as he did well to clock 18.55 in the worst conditions of the day as a nasty squall of wind and rain hit the race. Shaftesbury's James Trapmore caught him early on but then the two ran together until the last 500m when Trapmore got away. Highgate's Glen Saqui had also gone past quickly and helped Highgate to a 35" lead over us.
Beginning the anchor leg in 27th, Alex Cornwell had a bunch of clubs in his sights who were now wilting. Shaftesbury's Stephen Murphy cruised away to a 17.49 timing, and chasing the Humbug vest helped drag Cornwell past Gateshead, Blackheath, Lincoln Wellington and Wells AC, while Kent AC failed to field a 6th man. As a result he took us into 22nd as he ran 18.31. It was a well-controlled run from the Birmingham University fresher who was not fully recovered from his recent cold.
Our team time was 1:50.52 - only 36" slower than our fastest time since the Milennium. The race was won by Bedford AC in 1:45.42, with Shettleston Harriers (Glasgow) 2nd and Tipton Harriers 3rd as clubs 2-5 excitingly finished within 12" of one another after around 23 miles of racing. We were 7th Southern club and within 50" of our famous local rivals Shaftesbury and Highgate (20th and 21st). Serpentine were 29th, around 2 minutes back. Ourselves and Newham were the only Essex clubs at the championship.
Fastest leg of the day was by Tipton's Ryan McLeod, son of Olympic 10,000m medalist Mike McLeod, in 17.03.