The SEAA 12 and 6 Stage Road relays.

24th March 2019

 

 

The SEAA Men’s 12-stage and the Women’s 6-stage Road Relays returned to Stantonbury in Milton Keynes  on Sunday 24 March and it was great to see two teams from LBAC mixing it up with the best in the south of England.

Both the men’s and women’s races are a mix of short and long legs, with the short being just a few metres more than 5k and the long being approximately 7.7k.

 

After a lot of chopping and changing with people unable to run due to injuries, it was an achievement in itself that we managed to have the full compliment of 18 runners.

 

The men’s race starts at 12noon with the ladies at 1.00pm and Billy Mead was first up for the club. With his usual tactics of starting fast and seeing if he could hold on, he sped out of Stantonbury and returned from the long leg in a decent position to hand on to Adam Haylock who stepped it up on the day compared to recent form and will be hoping that this can kick start his year.

 

Next up was Tom Inchley who is on the comeback from injury whilst feeling not-so-fresh from new born baby duties, but as usual for the Inchley clan he performed on the day with another solid long leg to pass on to Sam Dear. By this point the field was extremely stretched and so Sam only saw two people on the course, but managed to catch both and finished with a Season’s best 5k time. Again, like Adam, something to build on.

Meanwhile the ladies had started their race and Kas was the first to head out from Stantonbury track in purple and gold, also still recovering from injury, but she got through for the team to pass on to Jo Sharples. Jo flew round the long leg and was the 28^th fastest on the day out of 65 with a time of 29:53.

At this point both teams were a third of the way through with the men in 45^th place out of 50 and women 31^st out of 34.

Taking over from Jo was Amy Farnfield who ran a strong short leg followed by Liz Peters who was at this point battling it out with the team from St Albans.

Will Eastman took the baton for the men next with his first proper outing for the club and showed he definitely has the potential for some good times in the rest of 2019. Ben Corfield ran the fastest short leg for LBAC on the day in 17:58 as he popped down on the train from Sheffield to do some fast running in purple and gold.

Rob Elmore blitzed round the long leg in 26:40 to gain the team a few places followed by Matthew Brooks who held the position nicely.

Two thirds of the way through the races and the men were now in 41^st place out of 47 and the women in 27^th out of 31. A few teams were starting to drop out but thanks to the dedication of some of the LBAC members we were able to continue with full squads.

Matthew handed on the baton to Pete Mackrell who had an excellent run and much like the battle they had in the Cross Country season, Pete and Rob were only a second apart on the day for the fastest LBAC long leg in 26:39. Tim Inchley hadn’t run for a month but was drafted in to make sure we had a full team and will be pleased to have run a decent 5k time from no training. Fingers crossed he will be back soon.

Fiona McLeish ran the penultimate leg for the ladies and held her position nicely before passing on to Jane Sauer for the glory leg to finish 26^th out of 27.

The men’s final duo of Ian Grimshaw and Warren Rose closed off a good team performance and finished in a final position of 37 out of 43.

 

Although the finishing positions aren’t near the top of the table at all, they should still be praised as this is a very strong competition with all the big boys and girls across the whole south of England. LBAC are one of the smallest clubs to even consider taking part and so for that we should all be proud of the showing we put on that afternoon.

 

Well done to everybody and hopefully we can have a full pool of people to choose from. It’s certainly worth mixing with the fast runners and big clubs at these events.

 

Full results can be found here. With the LBAC runners below:

 

37	32		Leighton Buzzard AC	4:41:49
1	132	A32	Billy Mead	27:07	45	27:07
2	232	B32	Adam Haylock	19:08	46	0:46:15
3	332	C32	Thomas Inchley	29:28	47	1:15:43
4	432	D32	Sam Dear	18:23	45	1:34:06
5	532	G32	William Eastman	29:41	46	2:03:47
6	632	H32	Benjamin Corfield	17:58	44	2:21:45
7	732	J32	Robert Elmore	26:40	41	2:48:25
8	832	K32	Matthew Brooks	20:21	41	3:08:46
9	932	M32	Peter Mackrell	26:39	39	3:35:25
10	1032	P32	Timothy Inchley	19:26	39	3:54:51
11	1132	S32	Ian Grimshaw	27:15	38	4:22:06
12	1232	T32	Warren Rose	19:43	38	4:41:49

43 teams finished.

 

26	84		Leighton Buzzard AC	2:37:58
1	184	A84	Kassia Gardner	25:44	34	0:25:44
2	284	B84	Johanna Sharples	29:53	31	0:55:37
3	384	C84	Amy Farnfield	21:02	28	1:16:39
4	484	D84	Elizabeth Peters	34:38	27	1:51:17
5	584	G84	Fiona McLeish	23:54	27	2:15:11
6	684	H84	Jane Sauer	22:47	26	2:37:58

27 teams finished