Southern 6/12 Stage Road Relays

This competition returned to its regular venue of Milton Keynes following last season’s more local hosting in the Olympic Park. Several supporters still made the trip, helping add further buzz to the team’s camp. The senior men were pleased to finish 11th and are excited to return to Sutton Park for the first time in 6 years to compete in the National version. The senior women finished 15th in what was their best performance for many years and a great way to end a season that has seen quality and quantity added to the squad. 

Becky Scanlan started the event on Leg 1 and, despite not feeling 100%, ran a very respectable time of 21:48. Next up was Claire Allen on the first long leg. With 4 weeks to go until she runs the London marathon, the team were very grateful for Claire switching her long run schedule- meaning she could race today. She completed her leg in 37:58 and brought the team down from 21st to 19th. Alicia McArdell had a great run on leg 3 with a time of 20:17 (13th position of the leg 3 runners) and managed to close yet another position to end her leg with the team in 18th position. 

Team Manager Kate Stockings was next onto the track to run the 2nd long leg. By this point, the gaps between the women’s teams had opened right up and so Kate had a lonely long leg, coming home in a time of 41:44. It was then down to two new additions to our senior squad to close the team on their relay debuts. Aiobheann Pearce took over from Kate and ran 22:21 for leg 5 before Kezia Beeton ran our final leg to end the event. Kezia had a fantastic run with a time of 19:33 and a position of 10th fastest time on her leg, the highest position of the team. 

A few of the men’s team also managed top 10 fastest for their respective legs but the highest position was achieved on leg 1 by Tom Frith. Tom came onto the track in an impressive 4th place, one manager reminisced that the last time that a Woodford man did the same was in 2012 with Alex Cornwall anchoring the team home just outside of the medals. Tom had surprised himself and casually followed it up with a couple more 5 mile reps as part of his training for London marathon. His time of 26:17 was our fastest long leg of the day.

Tom had also surprised the team manager who wasn’t expecting for Nathan Wright to be handed over to quite so high up. It meant he had to manage being chased and he coped well with the uncomfortable situation clocking 16:27. Nathan has been a fantastic addition to the senior squad this winter season and it could well be him entering the track in a medal-contending position in the future. 

Tom Philips had spent the winter rebuilding and was initially pencilled in for a short leg. However his marathon training indicated otherwise and he didn’t disappoint with a solid run. He followed up his 28:24 effort with several more laps of the course.

Next up was Reuben Fabian who just a few hours before was due to only be attending as a supporter. Thankfully he was prepared to step in after an unfortunate late withdrawal. Reuben is still in his rebuild phase after a significant amount of time out as he broke his collarbone at the start of the winter season. We know we’ll see more from him in future but he still managed 17:19 off no quicker work. 

Following a theme, the next two of Angus Holford and Simon Beedell had both endured disruptions to their winter seasons. Moving away from the mud of XC would be helpful but they both admitted it was tough going. Angus finished in 29:03 and Simon in 17:29. The team was sitting in 20th place at the halfway point but some of our faster athletes had yet to run.

Joel Doye enjoyed tucking in for the first of the two laps on his long leg and gained three places on his way to 27:29. Videsh Weerakkody gained another two places as he stormed round on our quickest short leg of the day in 15:46. He’d closed a large gap on a Belgrave team that had suffered from miscounting the laps on the previous long leg. 

The team order was swapped around on the next legs as bad M1 traffic had disrupted travel to the course. Tom Beedell overcooked the start of his leg trying to get on level terms with the Belgrave team but moved up two places on his way to almost finishing alongside them after a 27:41 effort. Dan Steel was due to anchor the team home but calmly switched to this earlier leg clocking 16:23 and gaining a further place.

Haider Razzaq was the surprise run of the day, showing no signs of being daunted with racing over 5 times longer than his preferred 1500m distance. He gained yet one more place as he moved us into 11th position with a time of 27:22. Tom Adolphus had been unable to contribute last year in this competition due to injury but applied himself well to maintain the team’s position finishing in 16:14.

Results: https://results.sporthive.com/events/7176156238635629312

Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/90204024@N03/albums/72177720315667427/