Men's National 6 Stage Road Relay: 15th
Our men's team finished a fine 15th in the rearranged National 6 Stage Road Relay held at Clumber Park in Nottinghamshire. Though we only finished 11th in the Southern three weeks ago, we expected to make the top 20 here. In fact, 15th was at the upper end of our expectations and our second-highest position in these last 11 years that we have contested this championship, and only the second time that we have bettered 20th place. Alex Cornwell took on the classic Leg 1 and succeeded in running our fastest leg of the day.
Video (excellent, 25 minutes)
Preparations had been disrupted for most teams prior to this event, because the race was officially cancelled two-and-a-half weeks ago before being rescheduled at this new venue several days later. Some clubs found that their athletes had meanwhile made other plans, while the more isolated venue proved challenging for others, particularly from the south. Clumber Park is a beautiful expanse of parkland, heath and woods covering more than 3,800 acres, and it proved a beautiful venue, though the course was a trifle short for some, at approx. 5.1K. Each runner ran 400m out to a loop which they ran twice before covering the quarter-mile back to the start.
21-year old Buckhurst Hill student Alex Cornwell ran confidently and aggressively to the halfway point, when he was lying around 6th of the 64 starters, but he began struggling on the second loop and dropped back to 26th. He was initially disappointed but later, having seen how well his time of 15mins 21secs stood up overall, he upgraded his run to "average". It seems he had put a lot of time in the bank over the first half of the course.
Harun Abdi, also 21 and from Stratford, had men nicely lined up for him and he took full advantage. He ran a very nicely judged race and reeled one man in after another, with only Matt Jackson of eventual silver medalists Liverpool passing him as he recorded our second quickest time of the day, 15:27. In the process Abdi took us 9 places higher, to 17th.
On leg 3, Ed Shepherd, just 18 and now, like Cornwell, a student at the University of Birmingham with its excellent athletics section, found himself running in good company with Notts AC's Sam Mitchell and Cheltenham's James Brewer who was ranked 7th in the UK this summer over 1500m (3:38). Shepherd never looked overawed and did a tremendous job in running 15:30 to leave us in 16th.
Daniel Bruynooghe has always been a sound relay man and this time, unlike 3 weeks ago in the Southerns at Aldershot, he was able to have a proper warm-up without looking after his children and getting soaked. But, as at Aldershot, he ran perfect lap splits within his 16.14 and, as our slowest man on paper, we were pleased to only lose 1 place, as Salford and Bedford passed him, but he passed Cheltenham.
Nottingham-bred Matt Shone was on familiar ground as he regularly watched the RAC Rally here as a child. As so often in recent times, he had put in an intensive burst of training specifically for the event, so he was ready and waiting to charge after any fading teams on Leg 5. In this case, his prey were Norwich and Bedford, both of whom he passed a little too easily for his liking rather than helping drag him around for a while. On the other hand Birchfield's Biniam Ande, who was joint third fastest man of the day, went by him so quickly he was unable to take any advantage. The result was a more than satisfactory 15:33 which left the 37-year old just a handful of seconds outside the times set by our youthful trio of Cornwell, Abdi and Shepherd.
For Andy Mariani this was a useful blow-out as he recovers from a back injury, so it was unsurprising that he lacked his usual spark. He was not helped by the fact that he ran in no-man's-land as Birchfield in 15th began the leg 20 seconds ahead and went further away, while Bedford started 10 seconds behind and went backwards. His time of 15:58 was a steady run and a sound team run. Unnoticed by many, Leicestershire's OWLS, who finished leg 5 in 13th place, failed to get a sixth runner around so, by default, we finished 15th. Norwich AC, who ended leg 5 in 18th, suffered a similar fate, which proves that it ain't over till it's over.
The first 3 places were filled by Newham, Liverpool and Belgrave. We were the 5th Southern club home, Aldershot finishing 4th and our friendly rivals Highgate 11th, 1min 8secs ahead of us. We took some fine scalps, such as Morpeth, Bedford and Coventry. In the absence of Serpentine, who failed to qualify from the Southerns, the other Met League clubs to close were Thames Valley (18) Shaftesbury (44) and Hillingdon (48). No other Essex club was present.
Next weekend attention turns to the bread-and-butter of league cross country as we host the first Active Training World Metropolitan League fixture of the season. Some of our men flexed their muscles off-road this weekend: Angus Holford was 7th in the Essex League fixture at Notley Park; while we had Harold Wyber (2), James Stockings (3) and Tom Phillips (6) in the top six of the Chingford League race at Trent Park.
On Sunday, in his marathon debut, Tom Beedell, who had been targeting 2hrs 40mins, finished 3rd in the Liverpool Marathon in 2hours 34mins. And In Kona, Hawaii, M40 Matt Molloy raced the World Ironman Champs, finishing 62nd in his age group and 425th overall in 10hours 9mins.