After a very successful Midlands road relay the national race, again held in Sutton Park over the same course was always going to be a challenge for our women as they were competing against the top athletes in the UK.
This is still a really important race in most clubs racing calendar and this year's event was run in good conditions although there was a strong wind for the runners to contend with. Such is the standard of this race, Birchfield had not medalled since the race was altered to this format with longer short legs and two long legs. The last time the Club won medals in a national 6 stage was in 2014 when we got a bronze by default because Swansea finished second but were excluded as being not an English club. In 2013 we also got bronze because Aldershot & Farnham finished an A team first and a B team second, and the rules state medals are only awarded to one team from each club so we were promoted into third postion.
This means it many years since we had won a medal outright with no help from any rules and, with almost the same team from the Midlands Championships bettering their time by 45 seconds to come home 3rd behind two excellent teams was a great achievement.
The race,
Leg 1 Hayley Carruthers is three weeks away from a very important London Marathon was a little nervous having found that Anna Moller and Jess Judd were on the same leg but she needn’t have worried as she ran superbly with a time of 28:35 which was 17seconds quicker than her Midlands course record and third quickest on the day to bring us back in 3rd place.
Leg 2 Georgie Hartigan was able to gain a slender lead on this leg and came back in 1st with a time of 18:09
Leg 3 Carli Baldwin was even more nervous than at the Midlands but nevertheless held her nerve despite being attacked on all sides only dropped a couple of places and came back in 3rd with a time of 19:22.
Leg 4 Chloe Richardson came in as the only change from the Midlands team fresh from a great run in the New York Half Marathon and she had a great run to finish 7th quickest long leg and despite dropping one place she pulled back the deficit in time. She ran 29:37.
Leg 5 Jessie Lutwyche had another splendid run and managed to match her Midlands time to the second and though not gaining places narrowed the gap to AFD to the point where they were visible, her time was 18:29 again.
Leg 6 Bryony Gunn now having the AFD runner in her sights wasted no time in attacking and after the first mile had taken third spot which she maintained to the finish in a time of 17:54.
Total time 2:12:06
We also had a B team who were 23rd in a time of 2:33:06. The team was:
Leg 1 Lizzie Watters who ran 33:46 improving by 45secs.
Leg 2 Karys Amory 20:06
Leg 3 Susie McManus ran 19:27 despite not feeling well.
Leg 4 Bev Hartigan ran 36:08 after racing 21miles six days ago.
Leg 5 Caitlin McMorrow ran 22:02.
Leg 6 Rae Nicholls ran 21:07.
Men's Race
Unfortunatley due to some late drop outs in the Midlands we were unable to field two complete teams so only qualified one for the national road relays. There were some changes in the team from the one that ran the Midlands and they all ran well to finish in 12th place out of 65 teams in a time of 4 hours 24 minutes and 4 seconds. The individual results were:
Leg 1 Will Richardson 26.32
Leg 2 Ed Banks 27.41
Leg 3 Mike Tanner 27.50
Leg 4 Omar Ahmed 26.15
leg 5 Orlando Corea 28.38
Leg 6 Andy Peat 27.14
Leg 7 Alex Jolly 16.14
Leg 8 Andrew Ridley 16.26
Leg 9 Daniel Ullah 18.01
Leg 10 Jack Hallas 15.58
Leg 11 Jonathan Gorringe 16.15
Leg 12 Rory Grant 16.32